IHE  CONSERVATION 

OF  WATER 

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LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class 


THE  CONSERVATION  OF  WATER 


THE  GUNNISON  CANON  CLOSE  TO  THE  DAM  SITE 

The  dam  which  has  been  erected  here  returns  the  Gunnison  water  through  a 
tunnel  in  the  side  of  the  gorge  to  the  Uncompaghre  Valley,  ten  miles  away,  where  it 
provides  homes  upon  fertile  farms  for  thousands  of  families.  (See  page  <?//.) 


THE    CONSERVATION 
OF    WATER 

BY 

JOHN   L.    MATHEWS 

AUTHOR  OF  "  RE-MAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI,"  ETC. 
Illustrated  from  Photographs 


BOSTON 

SMALL,  MAYNARD    &   COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,  1910 

BY  SMALL,  MAYNARD  &  COMPANY 

(INCORPORATED  ) 


Entertd  at  Stationers*  Hall 


THE  UNIVERSITY   PRESS,  CAMBRIDGE,   U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  WATER  AS  A  RESOURCE i 

II  FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION  .  .  28 

III  STORAGE 53 

IV  MUNICIPAL  SUPPLY  AND  THE  PURIFI- 

CATION OF  RIVERS 79 

V    WATERPOWER,   THE    MINING  OF   THE 

WHITE  COAL 97 

VI    WATERPOWER  IN  NATIONAL  DEVELOP- 
MENT       119 

VII    SWAMP  DRAINAGE 144 

VIII    IRRIGATION 9    .    .    .  176 

IX    CONSERVATION  OF  THE  SOIL  ....  220 

X    NAVIGATION 245 

XI    THE  RESULTS  OF  THE  CONSERVATION 

OF  WATER 267 

INDEX 283 


o-i  n?  ft 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Gunnison  Canon  close  to  the  dam  site   Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

Creating  a  Water  Farm 8 

An  Embryo  Water  Farm 1 6 

Too  Closely  Grazed  Forest 32 

A  Levee  against  Floods     ........  40 

A  Water  Farm 58 

A  Mountain  Reservoir  .........  64 

Cutting  Timber  in  a  National  Forest  ....  72 

Chicago  Sanitary  Canal 84 

Site  of  the  Wachusett  Reservoir,  near  Clinton, 

Massachusetts         88 

The    Wachusett    Dam    completed,  with    the 

reservoir  full 92 

'Lije  Williams'  Mill 100 

Potomac  Great  Falls.     Undeveloped  Power      .  104 

A  Dam  under  Construction    .     .     .     .     ,     .     .  no 

The  Bear  Trap  Dam  in  the  Chicago  Drainage 

Canal .     .  116 

vii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

Mining  White  Coal 130 

Swamp  Drainage 146 

Swamp  Drainage 152 

Harvest  on  a  Drained  Swamp i/o 

Irrigation  Ditches  in  an  Orchard 1 86 

The  Roosevelt  Dam 196 

Apaches  working  on  an  Irrigation  Project     .     ,  200 

A  Sagebrush  Desert 208 

Apple  Orchards  in  the  Yakima  Desert     .     .     .  216 

Disastrous  Tree  Cutting 222 

Riparian  Erosion *     .  232 

Hillside  Erosion 242 

A  Well-ordered  River 246 

A  Lock  on  the  Illinois 252 

A  Revetment  Mattress 258 

Steamboats  on  the  Upper  Missouri      ....  264 

The  Rhone,  a  well-ordered  river 276 


vm 


THE  CONSERVATION  OF  WATER 


THE 

CONSERVATION   OF  WATER 

CHAPTER   I 

WATER   AS   A   RESOURCE 

Ezry  Perkins  sold  his  river-bottom  farm  the 
other  day  —  that  no-account,  marshy,  rocky 
tract  that  stretches  along  the  upper  Punxit 
creek  in  the  very  northwest  part  of  New  Hamp- 
shire. Ezry  could  hardly  contain  himself  for 
mirth  when  he  came  down  to  the  store  to  tell 
about  it. 

"  Sold  th'  ol'  bottom  farm/'  he  gasped,  when 
he  had  unwrapped  himself  from  his  muffler. 
"  By  gum,  I  be'n  a-payin'  taxes  on  it  sixty 
years  an'  never  raised  a  crop  on  it.  But  I  got 
them  taxes  back  now ;  city  feller  named  Emer- 
son give  me  five  dollars  an  acre." 

"  Look  out,  Ezry  —  you  '11  be  took  up  fur 
swindlin',"  said  the  postmaster. 


THE    CONSERVATION   OF  WATER 

"  You  're  one  of  them  reg'lar  green-goods, 
ain't  ye,  Ez  ?  "  asked  the  village  humorist. 

"  Did  he  say  what  he  'd  cal'late  to  do  with 
it  ?  "  asked  the  village  magnate  cautiously. 

"Wai  —  I  ast  him/'  said  Ezry,  dubiously. 
"  '  What  ye  goin'  to  raise  on  it?  '  I  says. 

"  '  I  'm  a-goin'  to  raise  water  on  it,'  says  he, 
'  an'  mine  some  white  coal.' 

"  '  Wai,'  I  says,  '  I  never  heard  tell  of  no 
coal,  black  or  white,  bein'  dug  out  of  them 
granite  rocks,'  I  says.  '  But  as  fur  's  water 
goes,  you  got  a  good  start  right  now.' 

"  '  That 's  why  I  'm  buyin','  says  he.  '  Little 
draps  of  water,  little  grains  of  sand,'  —  and  he 
goes  off  to  his  team  talkin'  some  nonsense 
rhyme  about  it.  I  guess  he 's  one  of  them 
crazy  rich  fellers.  Good  Lord!  Five  dollars 
an  acre  fur  that  rocky  bottom." 

There  was  mirth  in  Ezry's  village  home  that 
night  and  for  a  week  afterwards  over  the  ease 
with  which  the  "  city  feller  "  had  been  sepa- 
rated from  his  money;  but  the  wise  stranger 
was  over  on  the  next  creek  buying  another 

2 


WATER   AS    A    RESOURCE 

bottom  farm,  with  a  chance  for  a  dam  at  its 
foot  and  a  watershed  above  it,  paying  money 
without  regret,  and  passing  along  his  wise 
saying  about  white  coal  mines. 

He  was  a  little  ahead  of  the  times  up  there, 
"  getting  in  on  the  ground  floor  "  he  would 
have  called  it,  as  a  landholder,  that  when  a 
movement  which  he  foresaw  got  well  under 
way  his  newly  acquired  farms  would  be  salable 
at  high  prices  for  water  storage. 

The  rest  of  us  will  catch  up  with  him  soon, 
and  even  Ezry  will  learn  in  time  the  meaning 
of  those  mysterious  words  "  water  farming  " 
and  "  white  coal."  The  storage  of  water  and 
its  use  for  power  —  combined  they  make  a 
large  part  of  the  most  important  movement  in 
which  we  are  involved  to-day.  It  is  a  move- 
ment the  country  at  large  does  not  yet  under- 
stand, so  suddenly  has  the  progress  of  inven- 
tion and  the  diminution  of  our  coal  supply 
brought  it  upon  us.  It  is  a  movement  which 
involves  the  world. 

White  Coal  itself  is  not  an  American  phrase, 
3 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

but  comes  to  us  from  Switzerland  and  from 
France  —  to  be  exact,  from  the  valley  of  the 
Durance  and  the  city  of  Grenoble.  It  has  long 
been  the  custom  of  French  writers  to  refer  to 
the  fagots  gathered  by  the  peasants,  and  to  any 
form  of  wood  for  burning  —  and  even  to  the 
growing  forests  —  as  "  green  coal."  A  young 
man  in  Grenoble  seeking  a  phrase  by  which  to 
catch  the  attention  of  those  whom  he  wished 
to  interest  in  the  little  understood  development 
of  large  hydraulic  powers  borrowed  and  altered 
this. 

"White  Coal/'  he  declared  from  the  plat- 
form, "  will  be  the  fuel  of  our  children ;  the 
white  coal  which  pours  down  the  mountain- 
side in  unending  abundance." 

It  was  so  that  he  described  the  white  water 
which,  released  from  the  melting  glaciers  of  the 
Alps  of  Savoy  plunges  down  over  precipices 
and  through  the  beds  of  torrents  to  feed  the 
Durance.  The  power  of  this  falling  water 
is  to  supplant  the  power  of  steam.  And  as 
for  water  farms,  engineers  are  already  learn- 

4 


WATER   AS   A   RESOURCE 

ing  that  many  an  acre  of  land  which  does  not 
produce  a  dollar  a  year  in  crops  —  and  many 
an  acre  which  produces  even  ten  to  twenty 
dollars  —  can  be  used  more  profitably  in  water 
farming.  Such  an  acre  will  earn  fifty  to  one 
hundred  dollars  a  year  if  it  can  be  made  part 
of  the  bed  of  a  big  reservoir  high  above  sea 
level,  and  used  to  store  water  in  high  water 
seasons  to  provide  power  for  mill  wheels  when 
the  rains  have  ceased  and  the  dry  autumn  has 
come. 

:  During  the  next  two  or  three  decades  water 
storage  and  the  "mining"  of  white  coal  are 
destined  to  be  among  our  greatest  activitiesv 
Over  the  whole  United  States  there  falls 
in  a  single  year  an  average  of  thirty  inches  of 
water.  That  is,  if  the  water  lay  where  it  fell, 
not  running  down  hill,  seeping  into  the  soil,  or 
evaporating,  it  would  form  an  average  coyer 
over  the  whole  region  thirty  inches  deep  —  in 
some  places  more  than  eight  feet  deep,  in 
others  but  five  or  six  inches.  This  total  rain- 
fall amounts  in  a  year  to  200,000,000,000000 

5 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

cubic  feet.  Having  fallen  upon  the  earth 
it  escapes  in  various  ways.  One-fifth  of  it 
finds  its  way  to  the  sea  through  running 
streams  —  enough  to  make  six  Mississippis. 
Some  of  it  sinks  into  the  earth,  is  absorbed  by 
the  roots  of  trees  and  plants,  and  escapes 
through  their  leaves  into  the  air  by  the  process 
called  transpiration,  or  the  breathing  of  plants. 
Some  of  it  —  and  this  is  a  very  large  quan- 
tity —  is  taken  up  into  the  trees  and  plants  and 
goes  to  form  the  greater  part  of  their  cells 
and  of  their  fruit.  And  a  great  part  of  it 
evaporates  again  into  the  air. 

No  other  element  in  nature  plays  so  profound 
a  part  in  our  existence  as  this  deluge.  The 
whole  surface  of  the  continent,  mountains, 
meadows,  plains  and  river  courses,  has  been 
shaped  by  it  in  the  long  centuries  during  which 
it  has  sought  the  sea,  eroding,  carrying  on  and 
dropping  sand,  silt,  and  gravel  and  even  huge 
bowlders  in  its  path,  cutting  gorges  through 
mountains,  filling  up  depressions,  making  hab- 
itable lands  uninhabitable  and  turning  sandy 

6 


WATER   AS   A   RESOURCE 

deserts  into  gardens.  The  climate  of  the  earth 
and  our  ability  to  live  upon  it  depend  upon  the 
moisture  in  the  air  which  stores  and  regulates 
the  heat  of  the  sun's  rays.  Every  living  thing 
upon  which  we  in  turn  live,  depends  upon  this 
water ;  and  in  the  end  our  ability  to  move  about 
the  earth,  and  the  power  to  run  our  factories 
and  trains,  will  all  come  from  water.  There 
is  no  other  resource  with  which  nature  has  en- 
dowed us  which  is  so  important  for  mankind, 
or  which  has  been  so  long  neglected  and  so 
little  studied  by  man. 

This  enormous  amount  of  water  which  now 
runs  to  waste,  this  sixfold  Mississippi  pouring 
its  idle  and  unutilized  flood  into  the  sea  and 
carrying  with  it  every  year  a  billion  tons  of  our 
richest  soil  —  is  mainly  a  source  of  destruc- 
tion and  loss  to  the  nation.  Yet  penned  up 
and  harnessed,  treated  not  as  an  element  of 
danger  but  as  a  resource,  the  wild  water  and 
flood  water  penned  in  reservoirs  and  the  river 
beds  developed  for  their  best  use,  it  would  pro- 
duce an  addition  to  the  national  wealth  so 

7 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

great  as  to  be  almost  inconceivable.  It  means 
a  green  and  bountiful  earth  storing  up  treas- 
ures of  fertility  instead  of  having  them,  as  now, 
swept  out  to  sea ;  swamps  drained,  deserts  irri- 
gated, forests  restored,  swift  water  harnessed, 
and  channels  opened  to  navigation  over  the  en- 
tire country.  These  are  the  material  things 
which  Conservation  is  to  attain;  —  but  in 
studying  it  we  shall  find  that  it  will  bring  us 
also  closer  fellowship,  among  states  and  indi- 
viduals ;  and  public  control  of  the  running  water 
and  public  prosperity  from  it  rather  than  pri- 
vate development  and  the  enrichment  of  only 
a  few. 

Wild  water,  the  unrestrained  run-off  of  the 
surplus  rainfall,  is  one  of  the  most  destructive 
forces  in  nature.  It  cuts  away  the  earth,  dis- 
solves and  washes  out  the  nutritive  elements 
in  the  soil,  wears  chasms  in  the  hillsides,  fills 
up  the  river  channels  with  debris,  and  dumps 
into  the  ocean  every  year  more  of  our  accum- 
ulated elements  of  fertility  than  are  consumed 
in  several  years'  crops. 

8 


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WATER   'AS   A   RESOURCE 

The  example  of  the  Mississippi  alone  should 
be  a  lesson  never  absent  from  the  minds  of 
Americans  until  we  have  corrected  our  rivers. 
For  if  there  were  one  hundred  thousand  men 
standing  on  its  banks,  with  shovels  and  an 
unlimited  supply  of  rich  earth  at  hand,  and  if 
they  toiled  twelve  hours  every  day,  three  hun- 
dred and  sixty-five  days  in  the  year,  they  could 
not  throw  into  the  Mississippi  as  much  soil  as 
it  carries  annually  out  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

The  heavy  rains  come  in  the  springtime  and 
sweep  down  the  swift  valleys  doing  tremendous 
damage.  In  the  Mississippi  they  cause  the 
river  to  rise  through  a  thousand  miles  of  its 
way  more  than  fifty  feet  above  standard  low 
water  —  and  this  in  a  river  of  so  great  width 
that  it  then  discharges  more  than  two  million 
cubic  feet  of  water  each  second.  Before  le- 
vees were  built  this  flood  overwhelmed  thirty- 
four  thousand  squares  miles  of  land  below 
Cairo  every  year,  and  made  a  river  forty  miles 
in  width.  Yet  in  a  few  months  this  drops  away 
until  there  is  only  a  ragged  river,  with  broken 

9 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

and  disfigured  banks;  which  would  have,  but 
for  our  engineers,  but  two  feet  of  water  over 
its  shoalest  bars,  and  these  bars  formed  of  sand 
which  was  dropped  by  the  greedy  stream  as  it 
swept  the  more  fertile  and  lighter  silt  away. 

We  have  spent  sixty  million  dollars  to  build 
levees  to  protect  land  from  overflow  below 
Cairo  —  and  we  have  it  returned  to  us  now 
every  year  by  the  crops  grown  on  the  protected 
land.  But  leveeing  was  only  a  makeshift.  The 
great  work  is  still  to  do,  the  floods  themselves 
to  be  stopped  and  the  erosion  with  them,  by 
the  creation  of  reservoirs  at  headwaters;  res- 
ervoirs with  massive  dams  for  the  big  rivers, 
and  smaller  reservoirs  ultimately  even  on  the 
little  creeks  which  are  destined  to  serve  our 
farms  and  furnish  power  to  haul  the  farmers' 
plows. 

It  is  almost  impossible  to  estimate  the  value 
of  the  power  of  this  water  running  to  waste, 
which  we  shall  describe  in  a  later  chapter.  It 
is  an  extremely  conservative  estimate  to  say 

that  there  is  in  our  rivers  and  brooks  power 

10 


WATER   AS    A    RESOURCE 

capable  of  development  equal  to  50,000,000 
horsepower.  It  may  in  the  end  be  double  this. 
To  produce  a  horsepower  by  burning  coal  under 
a  boiler  requires  not  less  than  thirteen  tons  a 
year,  even  when  economy  of  the  best  type  is 
practiced.  This  waterpower,  therefore,  repre- 
sents the  equivalent  of  650,000,000  tons  of  coal 
burned  every  year  —  and  all  going  to  waste. 
And  as  we  actually  mine  five  hundred  million 
tons  of  coal  a  year,  and  waste  an  equal  amount 
in  getting  it  out,  this  waterpower  unharnessed 
and  undeveloped  represents  a  needless  reduc- 
tion in  our  total  coal  supply  of  one  billion  tons 
a  year.  That  is,  it  is  equal  to  doing  everything 
we  are  doing  now  with  coal,  and  doing  most 
of  it  considerably  better. 

In  the  western  states  stored  water,  held 
through  the  dry  season,  becomes  valuable  for 
irrigation  —  for  watering  in  the  dry  months 
the  lands  which  otherwise  would  not  produce 
crops,  but  which  with  water  applied  produce 
bountifully.  Irrigation  is  yet  in  its  infancy. 
It  has  been  said  and  probably  truthfully  that 

ir 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

there  is  water  enough  in  the  arid  regions,  and 
in  position  to  be  used  profitably,  to  water 
75,000,000  acres  of  land.  This  land  produces 
sometimes  $100  an  acre,  sometimes  only  $50, 
but  often  $1,000  or  even  $3,000  an  acre  in 
crops.  To  call  $300  an  acre-year  for  irrigated 
crops  an  average  is  to  take  a  low  figure.  Yet 
even  at  this  figure  this  irrigated  land,  the  use 
of  which  depends  entirely  upon  the  proper 
Conservation  of  Water,  will  add  to  our  crop 
value  $22,500,000,000,  —  or  several  times  the 
present  crop  value  of  the  nation. 

The  drainage  of  swamps  is  another  feature 
of  Conservation,  and  there  are  of  these  also 
75,000,000  acres  capable  of  being  drained  and 
added  to  our  agricultural  lands.  This  results 
in  a  treble  benefit  —  the  reduction  of  swamp 
fevers,  the  turning  of  stagnant  water  into  use- 
ful channels,  and  the  addition  of  arable  soil. 
There  is  practically  none  of  this  land  which 
will  not  produce  in  a  year  $100  an  acre,  and 
the  whole  will  some  day  add  $10,000,000,000 
to  our  possible  crops. 

12 


WATER   AS   A   RESOURCE 

Navigation,  the  carrying  of  freight  by  water, 
is  just  in  its  infancy,  and  depends  upon  the 
storage  and  Conservation  of  Water  to  make 
the  channels  safe  and  useful.  In  twenty  years 
the  rivers  in  the  heart  of  the  country  which  are 
now  idle  ought  to  carry  as  much  tonnage 
as  the  Great  Lakes  carry  to-day,  more  than 
50,000,000  tons  a  year,  and  the  saving  on  this 
over  rail  haul  will  average  more  than  one  dollar 
for  each  ton. 

Waterpower,  irrigation,  swamp  drainage, 
navigation  —  and  soil  preservation  —  these, 
with  forestry,  are  the  great  profit  makers 
for  the  nation  in  the  Conservation  of  Water. 
But  there  are  other  elements  which  enter  in  and 
which  are  as  necessary  to  the  public  health  and 
to  continued  prosperity.  The  purification  and 
storage  of  water  for  municipal  purposes  is  one 
of  these  —  and  offers  problems  daily  growing 
more  pressing  and  more  difficult  to  solve.  The 
provision  of  an  enormous  food  supply  in  pro- 
tected waters  by  the  propagation  of  fish  is  a 
factor  too  little  considered,  but  from  which  the 

13 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

state  of  Illinois  alone  is  now  producing  an  in- 
come of  $1,000,000,  a  year.  Flood  protection, 
incidental  to  the  other  provisions  will  save  us 
from  $75,000,000  to  $100,000,000  a  year,  and 
unmeasurable  inconvenience  and  unhappiness. 

With  all  these  values  pertaining  to  water  the 
question  of  the  ownership  of  it  becomes  of  vital 
importance ;  and  in  fact  the  settlement  of  nearly 
every  question  which  is  brought  up  under  this 
subject  of  Conservation  depends  in  some  degree 
upon  water  title.  Water  titles  are  to-day  as 
important  as  land  titles,  and  in  some  cases  even 
more  so.  There  are  many  instances  already  in 
America  of  districts  in  which  individuals  have 
secured  title  under  color  of  law  to  the  entire 
water  in  a  big  river ;  and  no  person  owning  land 
on  the  stream  is  allowed  to  use  that  water  with- 
out the  owner's  permission  and  without  paying 
him  a  tax  for  it. 

In  the  old  days  when  water  was  of  no  impor- 
tance except  for  running  small  mill  wheels,  this 
question  seldom  arose.  Under  the  English  law, 
which  makes  every  concession  for  the  establish- 

14 


WATER   AS    A   RESOURCE 

ment  of  private  as  against  public  right  to  land 
or  water,  there  grew  up  a  common  law  which 
was  imported  into  our  eastern  colonies  and 
which  is  the  basis  of  our  doctrine  of  riparian 
rights.  By  this  common  law,  enacted  in  many 
states  into  statute,  the  owner  of  any  piece  of 
land  had  the  right  to  use  the  water  while  it 
flowed  past  his  land. 

"  Water  flows  and  should  flow  as  it  is  accus- 
tomed to  flow  "  says  this  old  law.  Under  it  a 
man  may  erect  a  dam  and  use  the  power  of  the 
water  passing  his  land.  He  may  hold  it  up 
temporarily  and  operate  a  fish  pond  with  it. 
He  may  divert  it  into  his  house  or  factory  for 
use  and  discharge  it  again  into  the  stream.  But 
he  cannot  draw  it  from  the  river  bed  for  irri- 
gation so  as  sensibly  to  diminish  the  supply  of 
the  next  man  lower  down.  He  may  not  befoul 
it  so  as  to  injure  any  rnan  lower  down ;  and  he 
may  not  impound  it  for  mill  purposes  in  any 
way  to  interfere  with  the  steady  operation  of 
power  or  of  navigation  by  the  land  of  his 
neighbor  below.  To  build  a  dam  he  must  own 

15      • 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

the  land,  or  buy  the  consent  of  the  owner  of 
land,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river ;  but  the 
need  of  grist  mills  was  recognized  in  a  statute 
which  allowed  the  mill  builder  to  dam  up  the 
water  so  that  it  overflowed  the  land  of  his 
neighbors  upstream,  thus  creating  a  mill  pond, 
for  which  he  paid  damages. 

This  law  being  brought  to  America  under- 
went in  our  eastern  states  several  remarkable 
changes.  There  was  a  division  of  opinion 
regarding  the  ownership  of  the  bed  of  a  stream. 
In  some  states  the  state  kept  the  ownership  of 
all  land  under  water,  in  others  the  individuals 
were  conceded  to  own  the  bottom  from  each 
side  "  ad  filium  aquae  "  —  to  the  thread  of  the 
channel.  That  is,  the  owners  on  each  side 
extended  out  under  the  river  until  their  land 
met  in  mid-channel. 

But  with  the  decision  of  Chief  Justice  John 
Marshall  in  the  case  of  Gibbons  against  Ogden, 
in  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  in  1824, 
this  whole  subject  received  a  new  turn.  Jus- 
tice Marshall  established  then  the  fact  that  all 

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WATER   AS    A    RESOURCE 

navigable  waters  and  all  rivers  flowing  into 
them  so  far  as  they  affected  the  carrying  of 
commerce,  were  directly  under  the  control  and 
regulation  of  Congress.  This  wiped  away  at 
once  the  riparian  and  state  control  of  such 
streams.  Out  of  it  grew  the  situation  which 
in  general  prevails  now  east  of  the  Mississippi 
and  in  some  states  west  of  it. 

Congress  controls  all  navigable  rivers  to  the 
extent  that  no  person  can  deflect  water  from 
them,  construct  works  in  them,  build  or  main- 
tain a  dam  in  them,  erect  a  bridge  over  them, 
dredge  them,  or  in  any  way  change  them  with- 
out Congressional  content.  There  is  a  prin- 
cipal matter  still  in  dispute,  as  to  how  far  this 
authority  extends.  Every  little  tributary  on 
headwaters  may  affect  the  storage  of  these 
rivers,  and  the  establishment  of  forests  over 
the  headwaters  may  do  the  same.  Opinion  on 
the  ability  of  Congress  to  extend  its  authority 
over  the  small  streams,  however,  is  widely 
varied.  Personally  I  believe,  and  before  this 
book  is  finished  the  reader  perhaps  will  also, 
2  17 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

that  every  tributary  of  a  navigable  river  to  its 
remotest  source  should  be  under  the  general 
control  of  the  same  central  authority. 

In  the  eastern  states  the  bed  of  each  navi- 
gable river  belongs  as  a  general  thing  to  the 
state  —  that  is,  below  low  water  line.  Some 
states  have  provided  in  their  constitution  that 
the  bed  of  a  river  can  never  be  alienated,  and 
thus  New  Orleans  is  able  to  erect  wharves 
along  her  waterfront  on  property  which  must 
always  remain  in  the  ownership  of  the  people. 
Unnavigable  rivers  are  under  the  state  control 
only  for  the  enforcement  of  the  old  common 
law.  In  many  states  a  power  company  has  but 
to  secure  the  necessary  land  for  the  dam  and 
mill  pond  and  it  obtains  by  that  act  the  right  to 
erect  a  dam  and  use  the  power,  without  regard 
to  the  rights  of  anyone  else  in  the  descent  of 
that  water.  A  hundred  reservoirs  might  be 
erected  above  the  dam,  and  under  existing  laws 
the  dam  owner  would  use  the  power  —  as  they 
do  now  on  the  Mississippi  —  without  making  any 
return  whatever  to  the  owner  of  the  storage. 

18 


RESOURCE 

In  the  western  states  where  life  itself  de- 
pended upon  securing  a  supply  of  water,  owner- 
ship to  running  water  became  a  valuable  asset 
even  before  irrigation  was  more  than  a  begin- 
ning in  Utah.  Almost  at  once  the  doctrine  was 
established  and  gradually  enacted  into  laws  in 
the  several  territories  and  states,  that  the  first 
person  to  levy  on  a  river  and  to  put  to  beneficial 
use  a  given  amount  of  its  water  should  there- 
after have  the  first  right  to  the  use  each  year 
of  that  same  amount  of  water.  No  person 
higher  up  could  take  it  from  him.  In  the  same 
way  each  subsequent  user  got  his  right,  and 
they  were  entitled  to  divide  the  water  in  time 
of  famine  in  order  of  precedence  of  title. 

"  Prior  Right"  instead  of  riparian  right  thus 
became  the  key  of  the  western  water  situation 
and  out  of  it  has  grown  both  the  safety  and 
the  danger  of  the  present  situation.  As  applied 
to  irrigation 'it  meant  simply  that  one  Jones, 
having  taken  up  a  tract  of  land  capable  of  being 
irrigated  from  the  Snake  river,  posted  on  the 
river  bank  and  recorded  with  the  Secretary  of 

19 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

State  a  notice  that  he  had  "filed  upon"  ten  sec- 
ond feet,  or  twenty  second  feet  of  the  flow  of 
the  river,  to  irrigate  his  land,  and  he  claimed 
the  right  to  that  water.  If  there  came  a  dry 
season  when  there  was  not  enough  water  to 
satisfy  those  who  had  filed  before  him  he  must 
go  without.  He  could,  however,  draw  only  as 
much  water  as  he  could  put  to  beneficial  use. 
"  The  right  to  the  beneficial  use  of  water  shall 
never  be  denied  "  reads  the  law  of  some  of  the 
states. 

So  it  happened  on  a  certain  river  in  Utah 
that  farmer  after  farmer  filing  upon  the  water 
of  the  stream  there  came  at  last  to  be  seven 
times  as  much  water  preempted  as  actually 
flowed  in  the  stream  at  low  water.  This  led 
to  a  meeting  of  the  farmers  and  it  was  found 
most  of  them  were  wasting  water.  A  time 
schedule  was  adopted  by  which  each  drew  his 
water  in  certain  specified  hours,  with  the  result 
that  there  proved  to  be  abundant  water  for  all 
concerned. 

The  3evelopment  of  large  irrigation  tracts 
20 


WATER   AS   A   RESOURCE 

and  the  taking  of  water  in  large  volume  for 
equitable  distribution  through  canals  makes  for 
economy  the  same  way ;  but  it  quickly  comes  to 
the  point  on  a  busy  river  where  every  person 
who  would  take  an  additional  amount  of  water 
out  of  the  river  bed  at  low  water  must  build  a 
reservoir  up  at  headwaters  and  store  from  the 
floods  and  release  at  low  water  as  much  as  he 
intends  to  take  out  lower  down.  The  federal 
government  has  had  to  do  exactly  this  for 
the  Tieton  project  in  the  Yakima  valley. 

In  this  way  through  the  careful  establishment 
of  prior  rights,  the  survey  and  measurement 
of  a  stream  and  the  provision  by  the  state  of 
an  outside  amount  per  acre  which  no  farmer 
can  exceed,  the  title  to  water  was  fairly  es- 
tablished, except  as  far  as  reservoiring  was 
concerned  —  when  there  appeared  the  water- 
power  complication.  Waterpower  has  the 
same  right  to  file  and  claim  water  as  irrigation 
has  —  or  as  mining  or  milling  has.  It,  too,  is 
a  "  beneficial  use."  John  Smith,  a  water-power 
man,  coming  to  a  western  river,  and  finding 

21 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

that  it  has  an  abundant  flow  over  a  fall  in  its 
lower  course,  filed  notice  that  he  claimed  this 
power,  and  proceeded  to  develop  it.  He  laid 
claim  not  to  a  specific  volume,  perhaps,  but  to 
"the  entire  flow  and  discharge"  of  the  river. 

Next  summer  a  wandering  pioneer  discov- 
ered a  fine  tract  of  land  higher  up  on  the 
stream,  settled  upon  it,  and  filed  a  notice  of 
the  beneficial  appropriation  of  water  for  irri- 
gation. Instantly  the  water-power  owner  was 
in  court  with  him,  and  secured  an  injunction 
restraining  him  from  diverting  the  water  to 
which  the  mill  wheel  has  a  right.  The  in- 
junction stands,  and  irrigation  on  that  river 
is  suspended  unless  the  lack  of  water  can  be 
supplied  by  reservoirs. 

This  is  not  a  fanciful  case.  It  exists  in  many 
places  to-day.  Thus  in  Montana,  on  the  Mis- 
souri river,  the  United  Missouri  River  Power 
Company  has  at  Great  Falls  a  "  Prior  Right " 
to  all  the  water  naturally  flowing  in  the  Mis- 
souri river.  Some  distance  above  there  is  a 
big  tract  of  land  known  as  Prickly  Pear  val- 

22 


WATER   AS   A   RESOURCE 

ley,  which  the  state  desires  to  irrigate.  This 
irrigation  cannot  be  done,  however,  and  the 
state  is  prevented  from  adding  this  fertile  and 
productive  area  to  its  resources,  by  the  fact 
that  the  water  title  of  the  Power  Company  is 
complete. 

Exactly  the  same  state  of  affairs  prevails 
in  Oregon  in  the  valley  of  the  Willamette,  and 
in  California  there  is  at  least  one  river  so 
tightly  owned  by  a  single  individual  that  no 
person  can  even  dig  a  well  in  its  vicinity  and 
take  water  by  seepage  without  paying  a  fee  to 
him. 

This  state  of  affairs  and  the  rapid  develop- 
ment of  power  in  our  rivers  has  given  rise  to 
the  need  for  a  new  set  of  laws  on  water  titles 
which  shall  protect  the  public  right  first  and 
the  individual  right  second.  Switzerland  and 
France  are  marking  the  way  in  this  direction. 
Switzerland  has  passed  a  law  which  is  based 
upon  the  fact  that  water  drains  from  the  com- 
mon land,  and  is  and  should  remain  common 
property.  Any  power  that  it  attains  by  force 

23 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

of  position  depends  not  upon  the  land  beside  it 
but  upon  the  land  on  which  the  water  falls  and 
the  authority  which  establishes  the  laws  per- 
mitting its  free  passage.  Therefore  the  right 
to  develop  power  in  a  stream  is  a  public  not 
a  private  right.  No  person  may  even  harness 
a  brook  on  his  own  farm  without  a  permit  from 
the  state  assembly,  and  if  it  is  a  big  power  in  a 
river  between  two  states  the  national  assembly 
must  give  the  permission.  Either  state  or 
national  assembly  decides  how  much  he  shall 
pay  for  the  privilege  each  year  —  an  assess- 
ment per  horsepower  —  and  sets  the  price  at 
which  he  can  sell  his  output.  The  tax  is  paid 
to  the  individual  states,  but  the  right  to  con- 
trol and  direct  the  development  is  retained  in 
the  people. 

France  has  gone  even  a  step  farther  and  now 
has  a  project  of  law  under  consideration  by 
which,  if  it  be  adopted,  in  a  few  years  all  water- 
powers  will  revert  to  the  nation.  It  is  declared 
that  all  powers  over  two  hundred  and  fifty 
horse  are  subjects  of  national  concession  and 

24 


WATER   AS   A   RESOURCE 

that  all  existing  franchises  expire  in  fifty 
years.  Hereafter  no  franchise  exceeding  fifty 
years  shall  be  granted.  Every  mill  owner  shall 
have  his  tax  and  his  charges  regulated  by  the 
state,  so  that  he  shall  pay  fair  dividends  on  his 
actual  money  investment,  and  shall  also  accum- 
ulate a  sinking  fund  so  that  when  his  franchise 
expires  his  plant  will  be  paid  for.  The  state 
shall  then  take  it  over  and  sell  the  franchise  at 
auction  with  the  right  to  use  the  plant,  for  an- 
other fifty  years. 

This  movement  is  but  slowly  gaining  head- 
way but  its  effect  is  already  apparent  in  many 
of  our  states  which  are  making  new  laws,  feel- 
ing their  way  toward  proper  water  title  defini- 
tion. Oregon  is  the  farthest  advanced  of  all 
states  at  the  present  time. 

"  All  water  within  the  state  from  all  sources 
of  water  supply  belongs  to  the  public/' 

So  reads  the  Oregon  law.  No  person  may 
file  for  irrigation  without  permission  of  the 
state  water  board.  No  person  may  file  for 
power  without  the  same  permission.  Water 

25 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

used  for  power  must  pay  a  tax  of  from  25  cents 
to  $2  per  technical  horsepower  —  about  50 
cents  to  $3.50  per  commercial  horsepower. 
The  law  does  not  go  far  enough  yet,  but  it  pro- 
vides for  limited  franchises,  for  public  owner- 
ship, and  for  the  gradual  straightening  out 
and  regulation  of  disputed  titles.  It  is  the 
beginning  of  an  advance  which  will  be  well 
worth  while. 

No  other  state  has  taken  so  radical  a  step  as 
Oregon,  though  Wisconsin  has  assumed  super- 
vision of  her  dam-$ites  and  put  them  under  con- 
trol of  her  forest  service;  arid  has  taxed  her 
waterpowers  to  pay  for  storage  at  headwaters. 
The  national  Congress,  which  has  control  of 
dams  in  navigable  waters,  has  long  been  in  the 
habit  of  giving  away  the  power  in  these  dams 
without  charge  and  without  regulation.  Some- 
times the  right  to  erect  a  dam  was  given,  some- 
times the  dam  was  built  by  the  government  and 
the  power  was  given  cost  free  to  the  first  person 
who  asked  for  it.  President  Roosevelt  put  a 
stop  to  this  wasteful  procedure  by  vetoing  the 

26 


WATER   AS   A   RESOURCE 

gift  of  Rainy  river  falls ;  and  there  has  grown 
up  a  modified  system  of  giving  limited  grants 
with  a  tax  upon  the  power.  The  extent  of  Con- 
gressional authority  has  not  yet  been  deter- 
mined, nor  has  any  definite  plan  Been  adopted. 
That,  however,  must  come  very  soon,  for  the 
Conservation  of  Water  is  so  vital  a  subject  and 
the  ownership  of  water  is  of  such  immense 
importance  that  we  cannot  long  continue  slip- 
shod control  of  it. 

There  is  hardly  an  item  in  our  lives  to  which 
we  can  turn  without  finding  some  benefit  ac- 
cruing from  Conservation  and  especially  from 
the  proper  care  of  our  water  resource.  In  the 
following  chapters  we  shall  take  up  in  turn  the 
chief  elements  of  this  work  and  try  to  sim- 
plify and  explain  them. 


27 


CHAPTER  II 

FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

In  the  summer  of  1909  the  farmers  on  the 
bottom  lands  along  the  Mississippi  harvested 
an  unusually  bountiful  winter  wheat  crop.  The 
season  was  early,  the  river  had  shown  no  sign 
of  a  great  flood,  and  with  much  good  heart  they 
cut  and  shocked  the  grain  —  worth  then  at 
the  farm  one  dollar  a  bushel.  The  work  was 
hardly  done  however,  and  the  wheat  in  shock 
ready  for  threshing  still  stood  on  the  fields, 
when,  almost  without  warning,  a  flood  wave 
came  down  the  Mississippi.  The  June  rise,  de- 
layed but  mighty,  swept  over  the  banks,  gath- 
ered in  the  wheat  shocks,  and  carried  a  winter's 
crop  away  to  the  sea.  Distress  and  want  fol- 
lowed in  many  homes.  How  great  the  loss  was 
it  is  impossible  to  say.  A  single  farmer  at 
Prairie  du  Rocher  lost  his  entire  yield,  worth 

28 


FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

$2,000  as  it  stood.  But  this  loss  by  the  farmers 
is  considered  so  insignificant  compared  to  the 
millions  lost  in  the  cities  by  the  same  ca- 
tastrophe that  no  one  has  taken  the  trouble 
to  record  it.  In  Missouri  alone,  that  year, 
the  June  rise  caused  a  loss  of  more  than 
$18,000,000. 

Yet  figures  are  nothing  to  estimate  by,  for 
the  loss  caused  by  wild  water  running  unre- 
strained down  an  overflowed  valley  is  much 
more  in  human  suffering,  in  actual  loss  of  life 
and  destruction  of  happiness  and  contentment, 
than  in  the  annihilation  of  profits  and  of 
property. 

Nothing  in  the  world  is  more  destructive  than 
a  great  flood  —  unless  it  should  be  a  prolonged 
and  widely  extensive  drought  in  crop  season. 
The  river  filled  with  too  much  water  swells 
until  it  overflows  its  banks,  fills  the  streets  of 
the  cities,  flows  into  the  houses  and  factories, 
puts  out  furnace  fires,  destroys  property,  stops 
business,  and  causes  losses  which  in  a  single 
week  in  a  single  city  may  run  well  up  into  the 

29 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

tens  of  millions  of  dollars.  In  the  country  they 
sweep  over  the  fields,  bear  away  the  crops 
waiting  to  be  housed,  tear  down  and  sweep 
away  barns  and  frame  dwellings,  often  overlay 
the  rich  farm  with  a  deposit  of  sterilizing  sand, 
and  sometimes  gouge  out  and  carry  away  whole 
acres  of  rich  land. 

Lives  are  lost,  business  is  stopped,  transpor- 
tation is  brought  to  an  end,  and  no  man  may 
estimate  all  the  losses  which  a  single  river 
such  as  the  Ohio  can  create  in  a  single  flood. 
When  it  recedes  fragments  of  houses  and  the 
wreckage  of  farmsteads  line  its  banks  and  are 
even  seen  caught  in  the  branches  of  trees. 
Cities  and  houses  are  deep  in  mud  which  must 
be  shoveled  off  and  cleared  away,  and  all  this 
mud  represents  fertile  soil  stolen  from  the 
farmer's  field  and  washed  down  upon  the  cities. 
In  the  mountain  valleys  and  in  the  deforested 
regions  bridges  and  railways  are  swrept  away, 
gravel  is  often  piled  six  to  ten  feet  deep  in  the 
village  streets  or  over  the  tracks.  A  single 
flood  in  Utah  in  1909  destroyed  more  than  one 

30 


FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

hundred  miles  of  a  track,  made  it  impossible 
for  a  great  railway  system  to  run  its  trains 
through  a  period  of  six  months,  and  caused  the 
expenditure  of  $14,000,000  to  rebuild  the  de- 
stroyed tracks  before  traffic  could  be  resumed. 

There  is  scarcely  a  river  in  America  —  none 
that  I  know  of  except  the  Des  Chutes  —  which 
is  not  subject  to  the  succeeding  floods  and  low 
waters.  Greatest  of  all  are  those  upon  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  its  tributaries,  and  we  may  consider 
them  as  illustrating  the  matter  and  offering  us 
both  the  need  and  the  manner  of  counteracting 
them. 

The  Mississippi  is  formed  of  three  great 
rivers  (and  many  smaller  ones)  which  rise  in 
regions  separated  by  more  than  2,000  miles 
of  the  heart  of  our  country,  and  on  which 
exist  conditions  of  climate  and  rainfall  as  va- 
ried as  one  can  find  in  the  entire  temperate 
zone.  Of  these  three  principal  streams  the 
Ohio  rises  in  the  Alleghany  mountains.  Its 
waters  come,  some  of  them  from  southern 
New  York  state,  some  from  Pennsylvania  and 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

West  Virginia,  some  from  eastern  Tennessee, 
North  Carolina  and  northern  Alabama,  —  but 
from  every  source  except  from  Ohio  and  Indi- 
ana they  come  from  steep  hill  and  moun- 
tain sides  which  slope  precipitously  down  to 
the  valleys  and  the  rivers. 

The  Upper  Mississippi  on  the  other  hand 
rises  in  a  broad  and  gentle  valley.  Its  head- 
waters, about  Lake  Itasca,  are  in  a  wooded 
plain  of  gentle  slopes,  surrounded  by  a  rim  of 
rock  which  makes  the  entire  headquarters  re- 
gion a  rain-storing  plateau,  and  over  which 
they  descend  swiftly  in  numerous  falls.  All 
the  tributaries,  the  Wisconsin,  the  Illinois,  the 
Minnesota,  the  Des  Moines  come  from  the 
same  gentle  slopes  and  pour  their  water  more 
slowly  into  the  parent  stream. 

But  the  Missouri  varies  widely  from  both 
of  these.  It  rises  in  the  western  edge  of  the 
Great  Plains  and  in  the  foothills  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  Out  of  the  beautiful  Gallatin 
range  and  its  neighbors  flows  the  river,  to 
course  across  the  semi-arid  west,  cut  its  chang- 

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FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

ing  channel  through  a  bed  of  friable  alluvium, 
and  come  at  last  to  join  the  Mississippi.  On 
the  whole  upland  of  the  Missouri  the  rainfall 
averages  but  fifteen  inches  each  year,  and  this 
comes  at  such  times  that  much  of  it  benefits 
the  river  very  little.  During  the  summer  sea- 
son the  ice  and  snow  in  the  mountains  melt 
and  feed  a  very  considerable  flow  into  the  river ; 
but  the  rain  that  makes  the  prairie  streams, 
such  as  the  James,  the  Little  Missouri,  the 
Platte,  begins  slowly  in  April,  and  is  soaked 
into  parched  ground  and  does  not  until  May 
become  violent.  Then  through  May  and  early 
June  it  tears  swiftly  into  the  river  bed,  sweep- 
ing with  it  the  loose  and  friable  earth.  Filling 
its  bed  to  overflowing  it  pours  along,  a  turbid 
flood,  doing  enormous  destruction.  As  quickly 
as  it  came  the  flood  ceases,  the  prairies  go  dry 
and  the  coulees  are  sunbaked;  and  the  Mis- 
souri, which  has  been  a  raging  flood,  becomes  a 
little  and  inefficient  river.  Along  the  banks  of 
this  stream  are  produced  fabulous  crops  which 
seek  markets  lower  down  —  but  the  insufficient 
3  33 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

channel  at  harvest  time  renders  transportation 
almost  impossible,  and  makes  the  river  useless. 
All  through  the  summer  the  clouds  sweep  over 
the  shadeless  plains  without  dropping  moisture 
upon  them,  and  the  Missouri  dwindles  away 
until  the  fall  rains  begin  to  swell  it  just  as  the 
ice  is  forming. 

The  rainfall  upon  the  Ohio  is  far  different 
from  that  upon  the  Missouri.  Averaging  about 
forty  inches,  it  falls  in  places  seventy  inches  in 
a  year,  and  produces  enough  in  the  river  to 
maintain  a  beautiful  boating  stage  every  day 
in  the  season.  Unfortunately  the  greater  part 
of  it  goes  to  waste.  The  heaviest  rains  on  the 
Ohio  begin  in  February  or  March,  when  the 
hillsides  are  frozen  and  the  earth  can  absorb 
nothing.  Usually  the  hills  are  at  this  time  cov- 
ered with  snow  which  melts  under  the  rain- 
fall, and  the  snow  and  rain  together  sweep  with 
amazing  speed  down  the  hillsides  and  fill  the 
rivers.  As  they  rush  on  they  tear  out  the  soil 
and  carry  it  with  them,  and  before  they  reach 
Pittsburg  those  which  come  out  of  Pennsyl- 

34 


FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

vania  are  already  deep  yellow-brown  with  the 
burden  of  stolen  earth. 

All  of  the  valley  about  Pittsburg  is  strewn 
with  mills.  Steel  furnaces  and  iron  mills 
border  the  streams,  and  stores  of  coal  and  coke 
and  the  bright  fires  of  coke-ovens  line  their 
banks.  The  livelihood  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  men,  and  the  continuance  of  industries 
in  every  part  of  America  depend  upon  the  activ- 
ity of  these  mills.  Night  and  day  their  fires 
burn,  night  and  day  men  turn  the  great  ladles 
which  spill  burning  slag  down  the  hillsides,  or 
open  the  channels  and  let  the  oily,  molten  iron 
run  flaming  into  pigs.  Night  and  day  the  roar 
of  ceaseless  activity,  the  crash  and  hammer  of 
the  steel  trade  goes  on  —  until  the  flood  comes, 
and  the  waters  creep  up  out  of  the  banks  of 
the  streams. 

Inch  by  inch  they  rise,  rod  by  rod  they  spread 
back  over  their  banks.  First  the  casting  floors 
and  the  railways  are  overflowed ;  then  the  fur- 
naces are  extinguished.  Men  are  driven  from 
work,  and  then  from  their  homes.  Boats  of 

35 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

coal,  sheds,  furniture  are  swept  away.  Stores 
are  invaded.  Industry  is  at  a  standstill  and 
starvation  faces  the  workingmen  out  of  work. 
Able  at  best  to  live  but  from  hand  to  mouth, 
the  energy  and  the  charity  of  a  nation  are  re- 
quired to  provide  a  living  for  those  thus  held 
from  work  by  the  flood. 

Three  times  within  two  weeks  one  has  seen, 
in  Pittsburg,  the  two  streams  which  form  the 
Ohio  there,  rise  out  of  their  banks,  until  they 
stood  thirty  feet  or  more  above  their  low 
water  level.  At  the  first  sign  of  the  flood  the 
shipwrights  were  hastily  summoned  and  the 
basement  openings  of  stores  in  the  lower  sec- 
tions of  the  city  were  caulked  with  oakum,  to 
withstand  the  floods.  As  the  waters  rose  the 
stores  were  closed  and  the  first  floors  caulked. 
But,  in  spite  of  this,  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
dollars,  and  even  millions,  were  lost  in  this  inva- 
sion by  the  rivers  of  several  blocks  of  the  city 
land. 

Lower  down  the  Ohio  receives  the  Kanawha, 
the  Big  Sandy,  the  Licking,  the  Kentucky,  and 

36 


FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

becomes  even  more  destructive.  It  sweeps  back 
over  its  farmlands  to  its  bluffs  and  invades  all 
the  neighboring  valleys  and  their  towns.  At 
Cincinnati  it  rises  sixty-five  feet  vertically,  and 
floods  streets  which  at  low  water  are  sixty-five 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  river.  This  immense 
torrent,  seventy  feet  deep,  a  mile  wide,  sweeps 
along  at  a  gait  of  nine  miles  an  hour,  wrecking 
steamboats,  sinking  coal  barges,  and  doing 
more  damage  than  it  can  pay  for  in  a  whole 
season  of  service. 

A  six-story  warehouse  built  on  the  bank  of 
the  river  at  Cincinnati  when  the  water  is  low, 
would  be  entirely  overwhelmed  and  hidden 
from  sight  at  high  water ;  and  a  shallow  steam- 
boat might  sail  safely  over  its  roof. 

Below  Cincinnati  the  Ohio  receives  the  Ten- 
nessee and.  the  Cumberland,  two  mighty  rivers, 
either  of  which  is  as  destructive  as  the  Ohio 
above  them ;  and  the  three  pour  out  into  the 
Mississippi,  to  go  on  damaging  property  all  the 
way  to  the  Gulf.  For  it  is  the  Ohio  which 
makes  the  grand  floods  of  the  lower  Missis- 

37 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

sippi.  The  volume  of  water  contributed  by 
the  Ohio  is  nearly  half  of  all  that  goes  into  the 
Mississippi,  and  it  nearly  all  comes  in  flood 
time.  The  Missouri  and  the  Upper  Mississippi 
contribute  long,  gentle  swells,  but  the  Ohio 
sends  precipitous  and  destructive  waves  one 
after  the  other. 

A  single  flood  in  the  Missouri  valley  in  1903 
is  estimated  to  have  done  not  less  than  $25,000,- 
ooo  damage.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  Ohio  does 
not  do  this  much  damage  or  more  every  year 
in  its  own  valley.  A  flood  in  the  Seine  in 
France  in  1910  is  said  to  have  cost  that  nation 
$200,000,000  and  one  in  the  Loire  in  1851  made 
a  total  loss  of  $67,000,000. 

These  immense  sums  show  the  actual  prop- 
erty loss  from  the  waste  of  water,  and  it  is 
only  that  with  which  we  have  reckoned  here- 
tofore. So  it  is  against  this  alone  that  we  have 
directed  our  protection  against  floods.  We 
have  never  until  now  considered  water  as  a 
resource.  Saving  the  water  to  use  when  we 
need  it,  preventing  loss  by  preventing  floods, 

38 


FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

establishing,  as  it  were,  a  savings  bank  in  which 
to  desposit  in  the  rainy  season  an  account  on 
which  to  draw  when  we  are  hard  up  —  has 
hardly  until  now  occurred  to  us.  Content  to 
let  the  floods  exist,  we  have  devoted  ourselves 
only  to  making  them  keep  within  reasonable 
bounds.  We  have  built  stone  walls  and  earthen 
levees  against  them. 

It  is  in  the  valley  of  the  Lower  Mississippi 
that  one  sees  these  levees  in  their  greatest  size 
and  their  most  complete  system.  There  for 
one  thousand  miles,  from  Cairo  to  the  sea, 
the  river  flows  through  a  bed  which  winds  from 
side  to  side  of  a  valley  between  bluffs  forty 
miles  apart.  When  it  rises  out  of  its  banks  and 
overflows  it  fills  this  entire  valley,  forty  miles 
wide,  and  sweeps  on  over  cities  and  through 
forests  to  the  sea. 

More  than  a  century  ago  the  French  began 
building  earthen  ramparts  to  hold  the  river 
off  the  land  about  New  Orleans,  and  this  work 
has  gone  steadily  on  until  to-day,  when  there 
exist  fourteen  hundred  miles  of  levee  along 

39 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

the  river,  and  thirty  thousand  square  miles 
of  land,  the  richest  in  America,  is  no  longer 
overflowed. 

These  levees  are  but  earthen  banks,  some- 
times two  hundred  feet  thick  at  the  base,  sloping 
up  about  one  foot  for  every  three  horizontal, 
and  so  rising  sometimes  twenty-five  feet 
"attove  the  top  of  the  river  bank.  Where 
the  banks  are  stable  they  are  close  to  them,  but 
where  the  banks  are  caving  the  levees  are  set 
a  mile  or  more  back  and  the  land  in  front  is 
left  to  be  devastated.  These  levees  are  built 
from  earth  by  mules  and  scrapers,  and  the 
whole  of  them  have  cost  the  nation  more  than 
$60,000,000,  two-thirds  of  which  the  people 
along  the  river  have  contributed  in  taxes  and 
the  rest  of  which  has  been  furnished  by  the  na- 
tion. There  is  nowhere  else  in  the  world  so 
magnificent  a  system  of  ramparts,  so  great  a 
system  of  defense  against  so  mighty  a  river. 
Year  after  year  the  yellow  torrent  rises  against 
them.  Year  after  year  he  gnaws  at  them,  en- 
deavors to  overtop  them,  seeks  to  find  seepage 

40 


A  LEVEE  AGAINST  FLOODS 


A  LEVEE  AGAINST  FLOODS 

This  view,  taken  near  New  Orleans,  shows  the  earthern  rampart 
*"hich  shuts  out  the  Mississippi  from  the  land.  Owing  to  the  floods, 
uncontrolled  at  headwaters,  the  river  is  for  a  considerable  part  of  the 
year  above  its  banks,  and  but  for  these  levees  would  cover  an  are?  of 
30,000  square  miles  between  Cairo,  Illinois,  and  New  Orleans.  Such 
levees  are  only  makeshifts,  easily  broken.  The  real  cure  is  in  the 
storage  of  the  flood  at  headwaters. 

In  a  levee  such  as  this  at  Hymelia  —  not  far  from  the  scene  of 
this  picture  —  a  crawfish  dug  a  hole  through  the  earthern  wall  in 
time  of  flood,  in  1903,  causing  a  crevasse  that  did  more  than  a 
million  dollars'  worth  of  damage. 


FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

or  crawfish  holes  through  them  with  which  to 
make  a  crevasse.  And  then,  in  a  night,  when 
the  victory  against  him  is  won,  he  finds  a  weak 
spot ;  the  soft  earth  slumps  away;  there  is  a  rush 
and  a  roar  of  waters ;  instantly  the  crevasse  is 
there,  and  thousands  of  men,  equipped  with 
every  weapon  known  to  man  for  the  staying  of 
floods,  can  make  no  headway  against  the  invad- 
ing monster. 

At  Hymelia,  a  sugar  plantation  in  Louisi- 
ana, the  flood  of  1903  broke  through  a  levee  in 
the  night  and  before  it  was  stopped  did  damage 
amounting  to  $1,000,000  to  the  sugar  planta- 
tions for  miles  around.  In  the  same  year  the 
levee  at  Hollybush,  Arkansas,  broke  and  flooded 
fifteen  hundred  square  miles  of  land,  from 
which  the  people  took  to  the  trees  and  awaited 
the  coming  of  rescuing  boats.  Hardships  in- 
describable follow  such  a  flood.  Cattle  are 
drowned,  farms  are  ruined,  buildings  are  lost. 
The  poor  people  must  begin  again  with  nothing 
to  establish  themselves.  If  we  had  no  other  evi- 
dence we  should  know  that  these  protective 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

levjees,  necessary  now  and  to  be  maintained 
as  long  as  they  are  necessary,  are  but  a  make- 
shift at  which  the  river  laughs  in  mockery, 
and  are  not  the  real  solution  of  the  problem 
of  floods. 

Yet  even  greater  than  its  actual  destruction 
is  the  cost  of  the  flood  to  us  in  loss  of  water- 
power.  Waterpower,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  later 
chapter,  is  due  to  what  is  called  a  "head"  —  a 
difference  in  level  between  the  water  on  the 
upper  side  of  a  dam  and  that  on  the  lower.  The 
water  descending  through  this  distance  in  a 
tube  or  penstock  passes  through  a  horizontal 
wheel  called  a  turbine  and  revolves  it  much  as 
wind  revolves  a  windmill.  The  weight  of  the 
column  of  water  resting  on  this  wheel,  and  the 
speed  of  its  descent,  provide  the  power,  and  the 
weight  of  the  column  depends  upon  the  height 
of  the  "head/' 

When  floods  come  rapids  which  are  very 
swift  and  even  abrupt  at  low  water  become  in- 
significant obstructions  under  the  tremen- 
dously increased  volume  of  water.  Low  dams, 

42 


FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

instead  of  being  able  to  hold  back  the  water, 
become  merely  riffles  in  the  bottom  of  the 
stream.  No  head  is  left,  as  the  water  below 
is  as  high  as  that  above,  and  even  if  the  power 
house  is  not  "drowned  out"  the  power  is  all 
lost  while  the  flood  is  passing. 

So  all  this  valuable  water  goes  by  without 
being  used,  and,  while  it  is  passing,  the  costly 
plant,  built  to  employ  it,  is  earning  nothing; 
and,  unless  a  duplicate  steam  plant  is  standing 
by  to  take  up  the  work,  the  mills  dependent  upon 
the  power  must  shut  down  and  their  employes 
be  thrown  out  of  work.  But  if  there  is  a  du- 
plicate steam  plant  to  do  the  work,  then  that 
must  stand  idle  when  the  waterpower  is  used. 
There  must  be  twice  as  much  machinery  as 
is  enough  to  do  the  work ;  and  the  factory  must 
earn,  and  must  charge  consumers  for  the  extra 
investment. 

When  the  flood  has  passed  and  the  river  has 
come  down  to  a  normal  level  the  head  is  rees- 
tablished and  the  machinery  turns  again.  But 
now  only  a  few  weeks  pass  by  before  the  rains 

43 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

have  altogether  ceased,  summer  has  come,  soil 
moisture  is  being  evaporated,  the  river  is  dimin- 
ishing, and  for  lack  of  that  great,  wasted  vol- 
ume of  water  that  went  out  with  the  flood  the 
mill  begins  to  work  feebly.  Soon  it  must  lay  off 
men,  or  start  the  "steam  supplement"  again. 
It  is  easy  to  see  that  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  mill  proprietor  a  "normal  water"  with 
neither  floods  nor  droughts  in  his  river  is  desir- 
able;  and  his  view  is  shared  by  his  employed. 
A  ready  illustration  of  this  is  given  by  the 
Connecticut  river,  the  principal  stream  in  New 
England.  The  Connecticut  rises  in  northern 
New  Hampshire,  many  hundred  feet  above  the 
sea,  and  flows  southward,  receiving  many 
tumultuous  tributaries.  It  has  its  rise  in  sev- 
eral lakes  which  offer  an  excellent  beginning 
for  a  big  storage  system,  and  these  we  shall 
take  up  later.  Each  of  the  principal  rivers 
flowing  into  the  Connecticut  is  employed  to 
drive  factories  —  the  Deerfield,  Miller's  river, 
the  Westfield,  the  Chicopee,  are  all  lined  with 
mills  which  depend  upon  them;  and  the  main 

44 


FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

river  at  Bellows  Falls  and  Holyoke  and  at 
other  places  furnishes  very  large  power. 

The  lower  part  of  the  river,  from  Hartford 
to  the  sea,  is  a  navigable  channel  having  a  low 
water  depth  of  ten  feet  through  which  vessels 
ply  between  Hartford  and  New  York.  The 
people  of  Hartford  seek  to  obtain  here  a  chan- 
nel eighteen  feet  deep. 

In  the  summer  of  1908  the  low  water  season 
which  always  affects  the  Connecticut  at  that 
time  of  year  set  in  and  continued  for  several 
months.  Absolutely  without  rainfall,  entirely 
lacking  in  storage,  the  Connecticut  went  prac- 
tically dry.  There  was  not  water  enough  in  the 
river  at  Holyoke  to  use  in  the  industrial  pro- 
cesses, and  none  at  all  for  power.  Steam 
supplements  could  in  some  cases  supply  the 
power  but  they  could  not  supply  the  water 
needed  in  the  mills,  and  one  after  another  the 
paper  mills  shut  down  and  left  their  employes 
idle  and  suffering. 

In  the  fall  rain  came,  but  this  rain  and  melt- 
ing snow  in  the  early  spring  filled  the  river  so 

45 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

full  that  they  overflowed  the  plant  at  Holyoke, 
drowned  out  the  fall,  and  again  temporarily 
rendered  the  power  idle  and  shut  down  the  fac- 
tories. Flowing  scarcely  one  thousand  second 
feet  at  low  water,  the  river  rose  until  at  Hart- 
ford it  was  twenty-six  feet  deeper  than  at  low 
water  and  discharged  144,000  second  feet.  It 
spread  out  over  the  meadows  and  did  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  damage.  But 
worst  of  all  it  wasted  invaluable  water.  Had 
the  flood  which  went  to  waste  in  one  day  past 
Hartford  been  saved  and  used  in  June  it  would 
have  kept  up  an  eighteen  foot  channel  to  the  sea 
through  a  whole  month.  And  had  that  which 
went  to  waste  in  a  week  been  saved  and  used 
in  the  dry  season  it  would  have  been  enough  to 
keep  the  channel  eighteen  feet  deep  all  through 
the  summer  and  fall,  until  the  rains  came  again 
in  November. 

But  more  than  that,  taking  it  off  the  crest  of 
the  flood  would  have  allowed  the  Holyoke  mills 
to  keep  running  through  flood  time ;  and  adding 
it  to  the  low  water  would  have  kept  them  busy 

46 


FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

then  as  well.  This  saving  of  the  water  is  the 
real  method  of  preventing  floods  —  not  to  run 
it  swiftly  to  the  sea,  but  to  confine  it  at  head- 
waters and  save  it  to  use  when  it  is  needed. 
We  must  establish  a  savings-bank  account,  and 
store  the  water  in  it.  It  will  pay  abundant 
interest  while  it  is  stored,  and  the  capital  can 
be  drawn  upon  when  it  is  needed.  We  may 
see  this  method  applied  successfully  in  many 
places,  and  for  a  good  example  we  may  look  at 
the  Neisse  river  in  Prussia,  Germany,  and 
Austria. 

The  Neisse  river  rises  in  Bohemia,  a  prov- 
ince of  Austria  near  the  German  frontier.  It 
is  formed  of  a  number  of  little  streams,  chief 
of  which  is  the  Goerlitzer  Neisse,  which  come 
out  of  densely  wooded  hills  and  beautiful  moun- 
tain valleys.  It  flows  by  a  number  of  prosper- 
ous villages  in  which  the  river  turns  many  mill 
wheels,  and  emerging  from  Austria  crosses 
Saxony  and  enters  the  Oder  in  Prussia.  Thus 
it  involves  three  states,  Bohemia,  Saxony  and 
Prussia,  of  two  different  empires,  Austria  and 

47 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

Germany.  There  is  no  one  government  which 
has  authority  over  it,  and  besides  being  diffi- 
cult to  control  it  appears  to  be  an  outlaw  which 
no  one  authority  can  take  in  charge.  It  is  like 
the  Tennessee,  which  rises  on  the  borders  of 
Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  flows  through  Ten- 
nessee and  Alabama  and  Kentucky  and  adds  to 
the  great  damage  done  by  floods  in  Missouri, 
Arkansas  and  Louisiana.  The  states  which 
suffer  are  not  those  in  which  the  damage  orig- 
inates. So  when,  on  the  2Qth  of  July,  1897,  the 
Neisse  suddenly  swelled  to  thereto  unseen  pro- 
portions, overran  its  banks  and  poured  a  de- 
structive torrent  down  its  valley,  though  the 
mills  destroyed,  the  homes  invaded,  the  villages 
driven  from  their  dwellings  and  destroyed  were 
mainly  in  Prussia  and  Saxony,  the  source  of 
the  damage  lay  in  the  denuded  hillsides  of  Bo- 
hemia whence  the  forests  had  recently  been 
cut  away. 

What  then,  to  do?  Bohemia  could  not  act 
to  aid  Prussia  or  Saxony;  Germany  could  not 
pay  taxes  to  Bohemia  to  pay  for  improvement 

48 


FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

and  control ;  and  yet  nothing  was  more  certain 
than  if  the  conditions  continued  the  valley 
might  expect  frequent  repetitions  of  the  de- 
structive flood,  and  might  expect  that  discour- 
aged people  would  abandon  their  homes  and 
move  to  more  favored  localities. 

In  this  emergency  the  mayor  of  a  little  vil- 
lage, Reichenberg,  involved  in  the  catastrophe, 
called  a  meeting  of  representatives  of  all  the 
governments,  and  of  all  the  villages  and  indus- 
tries involved.  Four  hundred  men,  vitally  con- 
cerned with  the  correction  of  the  river,  met  at 
Reichenberg  in  response  to  this  summons. 
They  came  to  look  upon  water  in  two  ways  — 
first,  as  a  destructive  force  which  must  be 
curbed;  but  second,  and  much  more  continu- 
ally, as  a  public  servant  capable  of  doing 
valuable  work,  who  was  escaping  from  their 
control. 

They  were  not  long  in  arriving  at  a  conclu- 
sion. Following  a  happy  suggestion  they  formed 
a  "  Genossenshaft "  or  Fellowship,  known  in 
law  as  a  corporation  "not-for-profit";  and  in 
4  49 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

a  true  spirit  of  fellowship  all  the  interested  par- 
ties entered  this  body.  That  is,  they  formed, 
and  their  government  allowed  them  to  form, 
a  fellowship  for  mutual  and  public  advantage, 
to  undertake  a  work  the  organized  government 
had  no  power  to  do. 

Engineers  engaged  by  this  fellowship  made 
a  thorough  survey  and  planned  six  immense 
dams  across  the  upper  valleys  of  the  Neisse. 
Tunnels  through  hills  would  divert  practically 
all  the  little  streams  into  the  basins  above  these 
reservoirs.  The  whole  work  of  building  six 
dams  and  collecting  the  water  would  cost 
$1,500,000. 

The  members  of  the  Fellowship  considered 
this  problem.  It  was  a  large  sum  of  money 
for  the  villagers  to  raise;  and  they  had  no 
authority  to  tax  anyone  or  to  compel  payments. 
But  their  plan  was  a  good  one  and  each  govern- 
ment could  do  for  this  little  group  what  it 
could  not  do  for  a  rival  government.  Thus 
the  agricultural  and  forestry  departments  of 
the  Bohemian  and  Austrian  governments  con- 

50 


FLOODS  AND  FLOOD  PREVENTION 

tributed  liberally,  half  a  million  dollars  that  did 
not  require  to  be  paid  back,  and  half  as  much 
more  which  bore  no  interest.  Saxony  and  Si- 
lesia, which  had  suffered  from  the  flood,  con- 
tributed altogether  $100,000  spread  over  ten 
years.  The  rest  of  the  sum  was  raised  on 
bonds  from  the  banks,  and  a  levy  was  made 
upon  the  waterpower  developed  by  the  storage 
of  water  (which  we  shall  describe  later)  suffi- 
cient to  pay  the  interest  and  eventually  to  retire 
the  bonds,  without  taxing  any  value  which  was 
not  created  by  the  improvement. 

The  dams  which  were  thus  built  in  the  val- 
leys of  the  Neisse  are  not  crude  wooden,  or  un- 
finished concrete  affairs,  blotting  the  landscape. 
Instead  they  were  built  massive  and  beautiful, 
after  the  German  method.  With  their  curving 
crests  handsomely  decorated,  their  fagades 
graceful  and  dignified,  and  their  banks  above 
low  water  planted  with  grass  and  overshadowed 
by  trees,  they  make  a  great  addition  to  the 
mountain  landscape.  Stacked  with  fish,  at  all 
times  holding  abundant  water  (yet  with  ample 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

reserve  space  for  flood  times)  they  furnish  rec- 
reation places  for  the  inhabitants  and  attract 
tourists  who  spend  much  money  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. The  millers  have  a  steady  power 
which  contributes  to  the  steady  employment  of 
the  people  and  reduces  their  cost  of  living.  The 
danger  of  a  repetition  of  the  flood  is  gone ;  and 
the  entire  result,  the  turning  of  the  waste  water 
into  use,  the  developing  of  a  resource  out  of  a 
danger,  has  been  carried  through  at  no  cost  to 
anyone  because  a  patriotic  and  long-headed 
mayor  and  some  country-loving  citizens  got  to- 
gether in  Fellowship  and  without  pay  and  with- 
out profit  carried  through  a  beautiful  public 
work. 


CHAPTER   III 

STORAGE 

The  Mayor  of  Reichenberg  had  the  right  idea 
of  the  first  step  in  the  Conservation  of  Water. 
The  waste  water  must  be  stored.  We  must 
secure  more  of  Ezry  Perkins'  land  and  turn  it 
into  water  farms.  Water  at  the  wrong  time 
is  a  destructive  nuisance.  Water  at  the  right 
time  is  a  public  asset  of  great  value.  The  moral 
is  easy  to  see.  We  must  hold  back  the  inoppor- 
tune flood  and  release  it  when  it  is  needed. 

Nature  does  this  for  us  in  a  remarkable  de- 
gree. There  is  no  steadier  or  more  remarkable 
great  river  in  the  world  than  the  St.  Lawrence ; 
and  this  is  true  because  the  Great  Lakes,  which 
feed  it,  are  the  largest  and  finest  reservoirs  of 
fresh  water  in  the  world.  The  torrents  of 
water  which  pour  into  them  in  rainy  seasons  do 
not  sensibly  affect  their  level  or  increase  the  St. 

53 


THE    CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

Lawrence  by  more  than  a  few  feet ;  and  a  pro- 
longed drought  finds  the  immense  reserve  in 
them  still  feeding  the  outlet  stream  with  an 
equal  volume.  It  is  only  through  long  periods 
of  years  that  their  level  fluctuates,  and  even 
that  cannot  be  entirely  attributed  to  the  rainfall 
and  drought. 

We  cannot  construct  such  reservoirs  as  these 
upon  our  other  rivers,  but  we  can  store  larger 
volumes  of  water  upon  them  than  we  have  ever 
contemplated  doing,  and  we  shall  find  this  mat- 
ter of  water  storage  —  of  water  farms  and 
white  coal  mining  —  growing  larger  in  our 
life  for  many  years  to  come.  Every  acre  of 
land  that  we  irrigate  demands  water  stored  in 
reserve  above  it.  Every  waterfall  which  we 
turn  to  electricity  demands  a  reservoir  which 
will  carry  it  through  drought  and  preserve  it 
through  flood.  Every  navigable  channel  de- 
mands an  adequate  supply  of  water  in  dry  sea- 
sons, and  demands  that  the  floods  be  kept  back 
from  it;  and  every  other  use  which  we  have  for 
water  contributes  to  this  demand. 

54 


STORAGE 

The  basis  for  such  storage  and  for  any  devel- 
opment of  water  is  a  careful  survey  and  meas- 
urement to  determine  how  much  water  falls 
upon  the  watershed  of  each  river,  how  much  of 
that  makes  its  escape  by  river,  and  how  much 
can  be  held  back  in  available  reservoir  sites  and 
used  profitably.  To  this  work  the  Government 
has  already  given  much  time  and  money,  and 
while  the  observations  and  records  are  not  com- 
plete they  constitute  a  large  and  valuable  mass 
of  information.  We  have  now  records  of  rain- 
fall in  all  parts  of  the  country,  carefully  dis- 
tricted, so  as  to  cover  the  headwaters  of  every 
principal  stream  and  many  little  ones,  and 
showing  in  detail,  week  by  week,  how  much 
rain  falls  in  excessively  wet,  in  very  dry,  and 
in  normal  years,  and  how  often  these  variants 
may  be  expected. 

Measurements  of  streams  have  been  made 
with  equal  care,  and  recorded  in  "  second  feet  " 
—  that  is,  in  the  number  of  cubic  feet  of  water 
which  run  past  a  given  point  each  second  of 
time.  It  is  possible  now  to  tell  with  accuracy 

55 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

how  much  water  from  a  given  rainfall  runs 
into  the  rivers  in  the  spring,  when  the  ground 
is  already  saturated,  and  how  much  in  the  fall, 
when  the  ground  is  dry.  We  know  why  the 
Ohio  with  a  given  rainfall  in  the  spring  pro- 
duces at  once  a  sharp  flood,  whereas  in  August 
the  same  rainfall  scarcely  produces  a  change  in 
the  river.  The  average  "  run-off  "  which  is  the 
percentage  of  rainfall  which  runs  in  the  rivers, 
is  figured  very  closely,  and  in  addition  to  these 
figures  maps  show  the  exact  drainage  area  of 
every  tributary  stream. 

From  these  figures  it  is  possible  to  compute 
at  any  point  on  a  river  the  average  or  normal 
flow,  the  amount  of  water  which  would  have 
to  be  stored  above  that  point  to  hold  it  down  to 
that  figure  in  wet  seasons,  and  released  to 
bring  it  up  to  that  figure  in  dry  seasons.  It 
is  possible  to  tell  how  much  can  be  used  in  an 
average  year,  and  how  much  reservoir  ca- 
pacity will  be  needed  to  save  the  surplus  of 
very  wet  years  to  use  in  very  dry  years.  Even 
with  this  we  do  not  hope  perfectly  to  normalize 

56 


STORAGE 

any  river ;  but  it  is  possible  to  reduce  its  fluctu- 
ations to  a  negligible  quantity  and  keep  it 
always  at  something  less  than  a  "  bank  full " 
stage. 

A  reservoir  site  having  been  selected  in 
which  with  a  minimum  of  expense  a  maximum 
of  water  can  be  stored,  the  ground  must  be  ob- 
tained, houses  cleared  away,  everything  which 
could  defile  the  water  removed,  'and  the  bed 
reduced  to  good  condition.  From  both  sides  of 
the  surrounding  hills  a  retaining  wall  is  built 
out  to  the  dam-site.  The  dam-site  must,  if  pos- 
sible, be  so  selected  as  to  provide  a  rock  foun- 
dation, and  as  narrow  a  dam  as  it  is  possible 
to  find  a  site  for.  Then  upon  a  rock  founda- 
tion or  upon  hardpan,  concrete,  stone,  some- 
times only  earthen  fill,  are  heaped  up,  to  the 
necessary  height.  The  designing  of  concrete 
dams  is  a  matter  of  great  engineering  impor- 
tance, and  the  problem  of  the  relative  factor 
of  safety,  the  provision  against  the  overturn- 
ing of  the  dam  by  the  pressure  of  floods  be- 
hind it,  is  one  on  which  engineers  differ  widely. 

57 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

The  dam  must  be  provided  with  a  spill-way  in 
which  floods  may  begin  to  discharge  before  the 
crest  is  overflowed.  They  must  have  releasing 
gates  or  sluices  through  which  all  the  water 
may  be  drawn  out  as  needed.  If  they  are  in 
navigable  streams  they  must  be  equipped  with 
locks  in  which  vessels  may  pass  between  the 
upper  and  lower  level.  And  in  many  cases 
they  are  provided  with  steel  attachments  called 
flashboards  which  may  be  raised  as  the  floods 
recede,  increasing  the  storage  capacity  of  the 
dam,  and  lowered  to  release  surplus  water 
ahead  of  an  advancing  flood  which  it  is  neces- 
sary to  provide  for.  In  each  dam  provision  is 
made  for  the  development  of  power  at  the  out- 
let due  to  the  head  of  storage  behind  the  dam ; 
but  this  power  is  not  as  reliable  in  amount  as 
power  from  the  same  stream  a  distance  below 
the  reservoir. 

In  the  cost  of  such  storage  there  are  many 
things  to  be  reckoned  —  the  cost  of  the  ground, 
sometimes  the  removal  of  whole  villages,  the 
moving  of  cemeteries,  the  preparation  of  the 

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STORAGE 

ground,  the  actual  construction  of  the  dam  and 
retaining  walls.  Such  costs  vary  widely  ac- 
cording to  locality,  and  they  are  usually  ex- 
pressed in  relation  to  millions  of  cubic  feet  of 
storage  capacity  behind  the  dam.  Thus  on  the 
Mississippi  the  reservoirs  have  cost  about  $14 
per  million  feet.  In  commercial  storage  the 
cost  is  often  $100  per  million  feet.  Even  twice 
that  amount  is  not  unusual  in  old  settled  parts 
of  the  country,  though  in  New  England  stor- 
age can  usually  be  secured  for  $150  per  million 
feet. 

That  is  the  whole  secret  of  the  water  farm. 
Wherever  there  is  land  in  a  valley  capable  of] 
being  made  part  of  a  storage  basin  by  the  erec- 
tion of  not  too  costly  a  dam,  and  where  there  jf 
is  a  drainage  area  of  sufficient  capacity  above,* 
that  farm  becomes  of  value  in  proportion  to 
the  depth  to  which  it  can  be  flooded  and  the 
distance  the  water  falls  in  running  down  to 
sea  level. 

Ezry  Perkins  alone  could  never  develop  and 
use  the  storage  capacity  of  his  farm.    The  res- 

59 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

ervoirs  of  a  whole  river  must  be  developed  by 
some  unit  organization,  public  or  private,  like 
the  Fellowship  of  the  Neisse.  But  when  it  is 
done  the  water  stored  will  return  the  cost  of 
the  dams  and  of  the  land  at  the  rate  of  thirty 
cents  for  every  million  feet  of  stored  water, 
for  every  foot  it  drops  through  turbines  on  the 
way  to  the  sea ;  —  that  is  to  say,  $30  a  year  for 
every  acre  one  hundred  feet  above  the  sea 
which  can  be  flooded  twenty-five  feet  deep  in 
water;  or  $150  an  acre-year  for  the  same  quan- 
tity at  an  altitude  of  five  hundred  feet. 

Disregarding  the  Great  Lakes,  which  are 
Nature's  reservoirs,  the  largest  water  farms 
in  the  world  are  the  basins  at  the  head  of  the 
Mississippi  river  in  Minnesota,  created  by  the 
federal  government  to  reduce  floods  and  to  im- 
prove navigation.  They  are  an  indication  of 
the  way  we  must  go,  for  in  time  we  must  treat 
every  river  in  America  as  the  headwaters  of 
the  Great  Water  have  been  treated. 

The  Upper  Mississippi  rises  in  a  plateau 
region  in  northern  Minnesota,  where  it  is  -fed 

60 


STORAGE 

by  innumerable  lakes,  and  surrounded  by  a 
great  area  of  swamps  cut  by  small  and  crooked 
rivers.  Much  water  which  falls  upon  this 
region  naturally  flows  off  quickly  at  flood  time, 
and  the  rest  lies  stagnant  in  the  swamps,  use- 
less for  any  purpose  in  the  river.  Down  from 
this  plateau  the  river  flows  in  a  series  of  rapids 
culminating  in  St.  Anthony's  Falls  at  Minne- 
apolis. Below  and  between  these  rapids  the 
river  is  navigable  except  in  extremely  dry  sum- 
mers. In  the  old  days  the  river  at  St.  Paul  had 
less  than  one  thousand  second  feet  Discharge 
at  low  water,  and  the  channel  was  often  less 
than  one  foot  deep.  The  power  at  St.  An- 
thony's Falls,  imperfectly  developed,  was  shut 
down  in  floods,  and  almost  useless  in  late 
summer. 

Among  the  lakes  at  the  hea3  of  the  Missis- 
sippi the  government  engineers  selected  the 
largest,  Leech,  Winnibigoshish,  Cass,  and  Po- 
kegama,  and  some  smaller  ones  as .  reservoir 
sites.  These,  with  the  surrounding  land,  were 
set  aside  by  Congress,  and  low  dams,  none  of 

61 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

them  more  than  fourteen  feet  high,  were  set 
across  the  outlets,  equipped  with  bear  trap  gates 
—  regulating  gates  to  allow  the  water  to  flow 
out  as  needed.  It  required  several  years  of 
accumulation  to  get  a  "  working  capital "  of 
stored  water  in  these  reservoirs,  and  they  can 
be  drawn  upon  through  several  dry  seasons 
without  giving  out.  The  low  wooden  dams 
have  been  replaced  by  concrete  at  a  slight  cost, 
and  the  whole  system  now  retains  in  flood  time 
93,000,000,000  cubic  feet  (enough  to  cover 
2,000,000  acres  of  land  one  foot  deep).  This 
is  the  largest  artificial  storage  in  the  world. 
The  result  of  it  has  been  to  keep  the  Missis- 
sippi at  St.  Paul  never  less  than  three  feet  deep 
in  the  lowest  water  and  usually  four  feet,  and 
to  take  the  crest  off  the  spring  floods.  At  the 
falls  it  has  rendered  all  the  waterpower  steady 
and  extremely  valuable.  Engineers  estimate 
that  at  St.  Anthony's  alone  it  has  benefited  the 
manufacturers  an  amount  in  excess  of  $500,000 
annually.  No  return  from  this  benefit  is  now 
made  to  the  government,  but  it  is  certain  that 

62 


STORAGE 

before  long  steps  will  be  taken  to  secure  a  re- 
turn from  this  which  will  repay  the  cost  of  the 
reservoirs. 

Reservoiring  is  very  necessary  for  the  pre- 
vention of  floods,  for  the  improvement  of  navi- 
gation, and  for  the  development  of  power.  But 
it  is  equally  important  for  irrigation;  and  in 
the  west,  where  irrigation  projects  are  carried 
on,  we  find  some  of  the  largest  storage  clams 
and  some  of  the  largest  reservoirs  in  the 
world'. 

One  of  the  great  rivers  of  the  west  is  the 
Flathead,  which  becomes  the  Pend  d'Oreille, 
and  which  in  turn  helps  to  form  the  Columbia. 
This  is  a  magnificent  stream,  flowing  at  times 
very  swiftly,  at  times  in  a  still,  deep,  navigable 
channel.  It  has  on  its  upper  course  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  lakes  in  the  world,  Flathead 
Lake,  a  body  of  glacial  water  forty  miles  long 
and  fifteen  miles  broad,  surrounded  by  lofty 
and  snow-clad  mountains  capped  with  glaciers. 
Out  of  this  flows  the  river  to  furnish  water  for 
power,  irrigation,  and  navigation.  These  three 

63 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

interests  properly  conserved  do  not  interfere 
with  each  other. 

An  acre  foot  of  water  properly  applied  is 
sufficient  to  irrigate  an  acre  of  ground  through 
a  year.  It  is  the  equivalent  of  twelve  inches  of 
rainfall  applied  at  exactly  the  right  time  and  in 
the  right  amount  and  under  perfect  control. 
Flathead  Lake  contains  a  surface  of  nearly 
400,000  acres.  A  dam  five  feet  high  above  low 
water  level  at  the  lower  end,  not  raising  the 
water  above  the  ordinary  high  water  level, 
would  store  2,000,000  acre  feet,  or  an  amount 
exactly  equivalent  to  all  the  reservoirs  of  the 
Mississippi.  This  would  not  alter  or  deface 
the  shore  line,  render  the  lake  less  beautiful  or 
do  anything  injurious ;  but  it  would  add  to  the 
Columbia  in  dry  times  water  enough  to  irrigate 
copiously  and  too  abundantly  one  million  acres, 
or  under  proper  restrictions  two  million  acres 
of  rich  desert  land. 

Storage  for  irrigation,  the  enormous  dams 
constructed  to  hold  back  the  floods,  we  will 
consider  again  under  the  head  of  irrigation. 

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STORAGE 

It  is  enough  to  show  here  the  need  and  the 
character  of  this  water  farming  which  is  so 
necessary  to  irrigation  farming  in  the  west. 
In  time  on  every  river  in  America  the  work 
will  be  undertaken,  and  every  lake  will  have  its 
boundaries  fixed,  its  outflow  controlled  by 
proper  mechanism.  But  this  is  not  the  only 
form  of  water  storage.  The  water  farm  must 
have  a  wood  lot.  The  hillsides  above  it  must 
be  planted  with  trees  to  facilitate  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  water  supply,  and  to  prevent  the 
basin  from  filling  up  with  washed  soil. 

Everyone  who  has  lived  in  the  country  and 
has  used  a  well  knows  that  water  is  stored  in 
the  earth  as  well  as  in  lakes  and  ponds.  Those 
who  live  in  a  prairie  country  know  that  when 
trees  are  planted  about  a  well  this  storage  in- 
creases and  the  well  collects  more  water.  The 
forest  affects  the  run-off  and  the  storage  of 
water  in  many  ways. 

The  forest  shades  the  moist  earth  beneath  it 
from  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun  and  so  prevents 
evaporation.  A  pan  of  water  set  beneath  the 

65 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

trees  will  only  evaporate  a  third  as  fast  as  one 
set  out  in  the  open  field.  Then  the  earth  be- 
neath the  trees  is  formed  of  vegetable  mold, 
weathered  rock,  finely  divided  soil  mixed  with 
decayed  leaves  and  twigs,  to  form  a  soil  called 
humus,  which  absorbs  water  like  a  sponge, 
retains  it,  and  gives  it  out  slowly,  drop  by  drop. 
And  in  the  third  place,  the  roots  of  the  trees 
working  continually  in  the  soil,  open  little  pas- 
sages through  which  the  water  runs  deep  into 
the  earth,  forming  subterranean  reservoirs 
from  which  flow  springs,  to  appear  far  down 
the  hillsides. 

So  when  the  rain  comes  down  upon  the 
forest  it  does  not  run  off  quickly  as  from  bare 
ground,  but  for  the  most  part  is  held  in  check 
by  the  trees  and  the  soft  earth.  After  the 
ground  is  saturated  and  the  woods  are  unable 
to  retain  more  it  runs  into  the  streams  as  rap- 
idly as  from  barren  ground,  but  not  until  a 
large  amount  has  been  placed  in  forest  storage. 
The  roots  bind  and  consolidate  the  earth  even 
then  so  that  no  earth  is  carried  away  by  the 

66 


STORAGE 

running  water.  And  when  the  rains  have 
ceased  and  the  barren  ground  has  gone  abso- 
lutely dry,  when  the  water-courses  fed  by  bare 
and  open  ground  have  not  a  drop  left  to  flow 
in  them,  the  forest  soil  by  slow  seepage  still 
gives  out  its  treasures,  and  the  hillside  springs, 
fed  by  the  deep  reservoirs,  still  flow. 

But  the  forest  is  able  to  do  even  more  than 
this  for  the  supply  of  water  in  our  streams. 
Much  of  the  rain  which  falls  beneath  the  trees 
dissolves  from  the  soil  the  plant  food  which  the 
trees  need  and  is  carried  upward  through  their 
veins  to  envehicle  this  nutriment.  The  trees 
absorb  much  of  the  water  and  all  of  the  food, 
but  the  rest  of  the  water  is  breathed  out 
through  their  leaves,,  in  what  is  called  trans- 
piration, and  in  this  process  a  great  quantity 
escapes  into  the  air.  This  produces  a  coolness 
in  the  air  over  the  forest  which  is  felt  by  bal- 
loons sometimes  three  thousand  feet  above  the 
trees. 

Rain  is  caused  by  the  cooling  of  the  moist 
vapor  in  the  air.  When  a  current  of  water 

67 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

vapor,  invisible  in  the  sky,  encounters  a  cooler 
current  it  condenses  and  forms  clouds,  and  if 
the  cooling  and  condensation  continue  these 
further  precipitate  into  rain.  On  the  western 
prairies,  often  during  long  dry  spells,  rich  cur- 
rents of  unseen  water  vapor  are  sweeping  over- 
head, but  the  hot  plains  prevent  its  cooling  and 
its  precipitation ;  and  many  attempts  have  been 
made  to  force  this  result  by  firing  cannon  and 
bombs. 

How  much  more  simply  the  forest  does  this ! 
The  cool  air  over  the  forest  chills  and  con- 
denses the  passing  moisture  and  causes  it  to  fall 
upon  the  trees.  Experiments  actually  carried 
on  for  thirty-three  years  in  a  forest  of  eigh- 
teen thousand  acres  in  France  show  that  for 
every  thirty-six  inches  of  rainfall  in  the  center 
of  the  forest  there  was  but  thirty  inches  in 
the  edge  of  the  forest  and  twenty-four  inches 
in  the  open  fields  ten  miles  away. 

That  is  why  the  destruction  of  our  forests 
has  been  so  destructive  of  our  river  channels; 
but  there  is  a  greater  reason.  For  the  roots  of 

68 


STORAGE 

the  trees  bind  the  soil  and  prevent  erosion,  and 
when  the  trees  are  cut  away  the  water  rushes 
pell-mell  clown  the  hillsides  into  the  channels, 
carrying  with  it  sand  and  gravel.  It  runs  away 
to  the  sea  with  the  light  and  fertile  elements, 
and  leaves  the  sand  and  gravel  to  block  the 
channels  and  prevent  the  use  of  the  water  for 
power  and  navigation. 

So  the  Conservation  of  Water  requires  not 
only  the  establishment  of  water  farms,  of  big 
reservoirs,  but  of  tree  farms  as  well  —  prop- 
erly conducted  forests  upon  the  hillside  and 
upon  the  plain ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  happy  fea- 
tures of  the  work  that  these  forests  which  add 
to  the  value  of  waterpower  also  furnish 
the  material  which  is  manufactured  into  useful 
articles  at  the  power-sites. 

We  have  here  then  the  big,  complicated 
problem  of  our  rivers  —  rivers  which  flow 
through  many  states  and  affect  both  local  and 
national  things.  To  prevent  floods,  to  prevent 
the  loss  of  electrical  energy,  to  preserve  navi- 
gation, to  permit  irrigation,  to  supply  our  cities 

69 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

with  domestic  water,  the  public  must  eventu- 
ally reservoir  all  the  streams;  and  the  states 
to  add  to  this  work  and  to  secure  a  wood 
supply  must  plant  forests  about  the  headwaters. 
Some  way  must  be  found,  then,  by  which  this 
work  can  be  carried  on,  and  the  money  benefit 
which  accrues  from  it  may  be  made  to  bear  the 
burden  of  the  expense;  and  by  which  in  the 
end  the  public,  which  owns  the  running  water 
in  the  streams,  may  secure  the  ownership  and 
control  of  these  great  public  works  which  make 
the  running  water  efficient. 

We  find  in  the  state  of  Wisconsin  a  long  step 
taken  toward  this  work,  and  a  great  example 
of  reservoiring  and  reforesting  of  headwaters 
undertaken. 

A  generation  ago  this  state  was  covered  with 
an  immense  forest  containing  a  magnificent 
stand  of  white  pine,  spruce,  and  fir  timber. 
Into  this  forest  went  the  destructive  breed  of 
lumber  men  who  have  wasted  such  a  large  part 
of  our  heritage.  They  cut  the  heart  from  a 
small  part  of  the  forest  and  sent  fire  sweeping 

70 


STORAGE 

through  the  rest,  burning  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  acres  of  primeval  growth. 

Under  its  unbroken  forest  Wisconsin  lay  a 
land  of  treasure.  Most  of  its  soil  is  rich;  its 
rivers  run  swiftly  and  are  full  of  power;  and 
their  lower  reaches  offered  fine  water  for  navi- 
gation. Along  the  east  shore  extends  Lake 
Michigan,  along  the  west  the  Mississippi,  and 
Lake  Superior  is  on  the  north.  From  a  little 
area  of  high  ground  in  the  north  central  part 
of  the  state  flow  all  the  streams  which  reach 
these  several  great  waterways.  Though  there 
is  no  mineral  fuel  in  the  state  its  water  powers 
seemed  inexhaustible,  drawing  their  summer 
water  from  thousands  of  ponds  in  the  source 
region.  It  seemed  a  state  destined  to  become 
among  the  wealthiest  in  manufactures  of  all 
those  manifold  things  which  are  made  from  the 
forest. 

At  first  only  the  lumber  men  used  the  water- 
falls, and  the  logs  that  drifted  to  them  were 
sawed  and  sent  in  rafts  to  market.  Steam- 
boats ascended  the  rivers  and  brought  in  and 

71 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

carried  out  freight.  Railways  crossed  the  state 
and  charged  low  rates  to  compete  with  the 
waters.  But  as  the  forest  burned  away  and  was 
destroyed  the  friable  soil  of  the  upper  regions 
washed  into  the  ponds  and  the  streams  became 
less  regular.  Sand  filled  the  rivers  and  de- 
stroyed the  channels.  The  enriched  lumber 
men,  caring  nothing  for  the  future,  but  satis- 
fied with  the  present  gain,  abandoned  the 
burned-over  land  to  the  state  and  deserted  their 
fallen  dams. 

Wisconsin  should  be  rich.  Her  furniture  fac- 
tories, standing  beside  the  rivers  which  bring 
the  lumber  to  them,  should  be  among  the  largest 
in  the  world.  Her  paper  mills,  with  an  unfail- 
ing supply,  should  contribute  an  unlimited 
amount  to  the  immense  demand.  Her  toy  fac- 
tories and  her  boat  works  should  be  known 
throughout  the  world.  But  instead  Wisconsin 
found  her  forest  almost  exhausted,  her  rivers 
running  wild,  her  navigation  lost. 

That  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  a  young 
man  came  to  the  state  from  the  forest  schools 

72 


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1611 


STORAGE 

of  Germany,  a  man  who  had  studieS  "  fellow- 
ships "  in  Switzerland  and  in  Bohemia  —  "  fel- 
lowships "  by  which  common,  ordinary  men, 
not  accustomed  to  handling  capital,  give  their 
time  and  their  energy  to  developing  public  en- 
terprises for  the  public  good.  This  young  man, 
Mr.  E.  M.  Griffith,  who  came  to  be  forester, 
by  recalling  and  combining  the  scattered  com- 
panies of  the  forest  army  has  established  them 
as  a  defensive  force  which  will  restore  the 
state.  Up  there  in  the  central  highland, 
whence  all  his  rivers  rise,  he  has  established  his 
stronghold,  and  there  he  has  determined  to 
gather  a  reserve  of  three  million  acres  of  trees. 
All  over  the  state  are  —  or  were  —  isolated 
companies  of  the  old  stalwarts,  ten  acre  and 
forty  acre  groups  of  pines  or  of  cut-over 
ground  belonging  to  the  state.  Two  hundred 
thousand  acres  of  this  was  turned  over  to  the 
forester  and  he  has  been  selling  it  off  as  agri- 
cultural land,  and  with  the  money  for  every 
acre  buying  and  planting  two  or  three  acres 
of  the  cheap,  cut-over  land  in  his  new  fortress. 

73 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

So  he  is  assembling  his  force.    Already  there 
are  nearly  four  hundred  thousand  acres  in  it. 

It  was  not  long  before  this  reassembling  of 
the  army  and  the  effect  of  it  upon  the  rivers 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  mill-site  owners 
at  Stevens  Point  and  Grand  Rapids  and  all  the 
other  towns  along  the  Wisconsin  river  on  the 
head  of  which  were  most  of  the  new  reserves. 

The  state  of  Wisconsin  is  prohibited  by  its 
constitution  from  undertaking  public  works. 
So  a  new  law  was  passed  for  the  mill  owners 
creating  a  corporation  —  a  corporation  not-for- 
profit,  something  almost  unheard  of  in  Amer- 
ica. It  is  called  the  Wisconsin  Valley  Improve- 
ment Company,  and  has  a  paid-up  capital  of 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  on  which  it  is 
allowed  to  earn  six  per  cent.  The  stock  of  this 
company  must  be  offered  to  every  power  owner 
on  the  river,  in  the  proportion  which  his  own 
power  bears  to  the  whole  power  of  the  stream. 
If  he  does  not  care  to  buy,  the  rest  divide  it 
among  themselves,  but  at  any  annual  meeting 
he  can  come  and  demand  his  share,  at  par. 

74 


STORAGE 

The  corporation,  subject  to  the  control  of  the 
forester,  has  the  right  of  eminent  domain  over 
ponds  and  lands  —  lands  suitable  for  water 
farms  —  in  the  source  region,  and  the  right  to 
use  ponds  in  the  forest  reserve.  The  forester 
sets  two  monuments.  They  cannot  raise  the 
water  above  the  one  nor  draw  it  below  the 
other.  This  insures  the  beauty  of  the  forest, 
which  is  to  be  a  great  state  park.  The  corpora- 
tion builds  dams  out  of  its  capital  and  estab- 
lishes men  to  work  the  sluice  gates. 

Meanwhile  the  State  Railway  Commission 
has  surveyed  the  valley,  determined  the  pres- 
ent strength  of  every  power,  and  the  extent  to 
which  it  is  improved  by  the  use  of  storage. 
They  add  up  the  cost  of  operation  and  the  six 
per  cent  interest,  and  divide  the  sum  per  horse- 
power of  improvement  on  every  power  owner 
whether  he  is  a  stockholder  in  the  improvement 
company  or  not.  That  is,  they  make  a  tax  of 
it.  The  corporation  can  issue  no  stock  without 
special  permission  and  for  money  paid  in.  It 
can  do  nothing  but  improve  the  river  by  stor- 

75 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

age.  It  pays  its  own  way  an3  nothing  more. 
And  the  state  can  buy  it  at  any  time  for  the 
actual  amount  spent  or  for  its  physical  value. 
There  is  no  chance  for  a  monopoly  there. 

Now  let  us  see  what  the  forester  has  done 
for  Wisconsin  with  the  aid  and  co-operation 
of  the  mill  men.  There  is  so  far  developed  four 
billion  feet  of  storage,  and  surveys  are  made 
for  twenty  billion.  The  value  and  efficiency  of 
every  power  on  the  river  is  already  doubled. 
Instead  of  shutting  down,  or  buying  coal  in  the 
low  water  season,  as  the  mills  on  other  rivers 
do,  those  on  the  Wisconsin  go  ahead  on  their 
stored  water.  The  lower  river,  which  has  so 
long  been  unnavigable,  is  soon  to  become  a 
deep  and  useful  stream,  reducing  freight  rates 
in  a  large  territory. 

And  to  indicate  that  the  benefit  is  well  under- 
stood, the  forester  has  been  called  upon  by  the 
mill  owners  of  the  other  big  rivers,  the  Flam- 
beau and  the  Tomahawk,  the  Chippewa,  the  St. 
Croix,  the  Wolf,  the  Fox,  the  Peshtigo  and  the 
Menominee,  to  work  out  the  same  system  for 

76 


STORAGE 

them  all ;  and  within  a  short  time  not  only  will 
the  three  million  acre  forest  reserve  cover  the 
head  of  all  these  streams,  but  their  thousands 
of  ponds  will  be  turned  into  reservoirs,  the 
rivers  will  have  ceased  their  floods,  there  will 
be  work  at  full  time  all  the  year  round  in  every 
water  mill  in  the  state  —  which  means  in  a  ma- 
jority of  its  great  industries;  the  state  will  be 
saving  many  millions  a  year  on  its  coal  bills. 
Into  the  state  treasury  will  come  an  increasing 
revenue  from  the  forest  tract;  and  an  increas- 
ing volume  of  paper  wood,  furniture  wood  and 
lumber,  drifting  down  the  stream  to  the  biggest 
paper  making  towns  in  the  world.  From  the 
factory  doors  the  finished  products  will  proceed 
on  canalized  and  regulated  rivers,  to  the  lakes 
and  to  the  Mississippi,  to  Chicago,  to  St.  Louis, 
to  the  Gulf  and  to  Panama.  The  whole  state 
benefits  by  this.  And  what  is  best,  no  man  suf- 
fers a  loss. 

Wisconsin  now  has  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  thousand  horsepower  developed  on  her 
streams,  and  by  the  old  method  could  develop 

77 


THE    CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

perhaps  five  hundred  thousand  horsepower. 
By  the  new  system  she  will  have  at  least  one 
million  horsepower  worth  now,  as  power  goes 
up  there,  not  less  than  twenty-five  million  dol- 
lars a  year  and  in  time  to  be  worth  much  more 
—  and  worth  it  partly  because,  thanks  to  the 
inexhaustible  forest  reserve  and  the  great  pri- 
vate tracts  which  are  to  be  worked  in  system 
with  it,  the  mills  will  have  a  perpetual  abun- 
dance of  the  raw  material  for  their  goods.  And 
of  this  sum  a  full  half  will  be  due  to  the 
reservoirs. 

That  is  the  way  the  rest  of  us  must  travel; 
and  in  the  end  we  will  find  not  a  bill  of  expense, 
annually  renewed  by  flood  and  drought,  but 
a  steady  income,  from  dividends  regularly  de- 
clared, on  all  we  invest  on  the  wise  conserva- 
tion of  our  water  supply  by  forestry  and  reser- 
voir construction. 


CHAPTER   IV 

MUNICIPAL  SUPPLY  AND  THE  PURIFICATION 
OF  RIVERS 

With  a  national  indifference  to  our  neigh- 
bors' well-being  nearly  every  city  in  America 
pours  its  sewage  and  drainage  into  some  run- 
ning stream,  regardless  of  the  consequences  to 
those  who  dwell  farther  down  the  valley.  With 
an  equal  indifference  to  our  own  well-being 
many  cities  pump  their  domestic  water  supplies 
from  these  same  running  streams  and  send 
them  through  their  mains  into  their  houses 
without  purification  or  alteration.  Those  cities 
which  seek  to  get  away  from  this  barbarous 
fashion  find  themselves  confronted  by  one  of 
the  most  perplexing  situations  in  the  whole 
story  of  Conservation.  There  is  but  one  way, 
apparently,  to  raise  a  crop  of  pure  water. 
That  is  for  each  city  to  establish  its.  own  water 

79 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

farm  and  grow  the  product  under  watchful 
supervision. 

In  the  same  way  that  individual  cities  and 
states  long  fought  against  adulterated  and 
unhealthy  food  products  vainly  and  then  com- 
bined in  a  national  pure  food  law  to  remedy  the 
situation  universally,  so  we  shall  in  time  become 
discouraged  with  endeavoring  to  remedy  this 
situation  locally  and  shall  pass  a  national  pure 
water  law,  which  will  make  it  impossible  for 
any  city,  factory  or  individual  to  corrupt  a  run- 
ning stream,  and  will  make  the  water  in  our 
rivers  clean,  healthful  and  useful.  Every 
water  farm  will  be  a  source  of  healthful  supply, 
and  we  shall  secure  the  product  through  natural 
channels  of  distribution. 

The  problem  of  securing  an  abundant  supply 
of  water  for  domestic  and  other  uses  is  one 
which  has  always  been  difficult  for  cities  to 
solve.  The  Romans  spent  limitless  money  and 
countless  lives  upon  their  aqueducts.  New 
York  to-day  is  spending  fabulous  numbers  of 
dollars  and  wasting  as  many  lives  as  Rome 

80 


MUNICIPAL   SUPPLY 

wasteS  to  bring  the  water  from  the  Catskills 
uncontaminated  to  her  faucets.  Chicago  has 
recently  spent  $65,000,000  to  drain  her  own 
sewage  out  of  her  drinking  water,  and  will 
soon  have  to  spend  an  equal  sum  to  drain  it 
out  of  the  water  of  her  neighbors.  Pittsburg 
has  spent  a  fortune  to  filter  the  water  of  the 
Allegheny  and  make  it  fit  to  drink,  thereby 
greatly  reducing  her  typhoid  scourge;  but  she 
still  pours  her  own  filth  into  the  Ohio  for  the 
benefit  of  Sewickly  and  Wheeling.  Flowing 
on  down  to  Cairo  it  combines  with  that  from 
St.  Louis  and  Chicago,  St.  Paul,  and  Kansas 
City,  Nashville,  and  Chattanooga,  and  a  thou- 
sand other  cities,  and  flows  on  down  to  South- 
port,  where  New  Orleans  pumps  it  from  the 
river  bed  and  sends  it  coursing  through  her 
mains. 

And  it  is  not  only  the  cities  that  pollute  the 
streams.  The  gas  factories  fill  them  with 
water  impregnated  with  ammonia;  the  paper 
mills  pour  a  vile  slush  into  them ;  chemical 
works  add  their  waste ;  and  there  is  scarcely  a 
6  81 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

factory  which  does  not  discharge  materials 
which  render  the  water  unfit  for  human  use 
and  impossible  for  fish  to  live  in. 

Three  wrongs  are  done  thereby.  First,  the 
water  is  rendered  unpotable,  forcing  cities  to 
establish  very  expensive  storage  systems  often 
at  a  great  distance.  Second,  the  fish  are  de- 
stroyed, thereby  reducing  a  very  necessary 
source  of  food  from  which  Illinois  alone,  in  her 
prairie  river,  secures  an  income  of  $1,000,000 
annually.  Third,  and  this  some  day  to  be 
looked  upon  as  the  greatest  evil,  there  is  wasted 
and  lost  in  this  way  not  only  a  lot  of  material 
from  the  manufactories  which  could  be  saved 
and  re-used  in  the  arts,  but  also  a  great  amount 
of  phosphorus,  chiefly  in  the  human  waste  from 
the  sewers,  which  is  taken  from  the  soil  in 
growing  crops  and  which  we  have  no  way  of 
replacing  unless  we  save  the  sewage. 

For  these  three  reasons  if  for  no  others  the 
day  will  come  when  every  sewer  will  enter  into 
a  conserving  plant  which  will  extract  every- 
thing of  value  from  it  and  discharge  only  harm- 

82 


MUNICIPAL    SUPPLY 

less,  pure  water;  every  factory  will  develop 
the  conservation  of  its  waste  and  be  carefully 
inspected  to  prevent  stream  pollution;  and 
every  river  in  America  will  flow  pure  and  un- 
contaminated  from  its  source  to  the  sea  so  that 
any  city  which  wishes  may  pump  from  it  and 
use  the  water  so  drawn. 

If  we  should  turn  to  almost  any  city  in 
America,  though  there  are  a  few  now  which 
have  sanitary  sewage  disposal  plants,  we  should 
find  strikingly  displayed  the  national  careless- 
ness about  this  matter.  We  cannot  find  one 
more  typical  in  this,  nor  one  which  shows  more 
clearly  the  futility  of  the  old-time  methods  of 
correction  than  Chicago.  From  its  earliest 
foundation  until  a  decade  ago  Chicago  poured 
its  sewage  out  into  Lake  Michigan  and  then 
pumped  it  back  for  drinking  water,  wasting  at 
the  same  time  the  phosphorus  in  the  sewage, 
and  the  lives  of  its  citizens.  When  it  decided 
on  a  change  it  reversed  the  current  in  its  river 
and  sent  the  sewage  down  to  St.  Louis,  leaving 
Lake  Michigan  to  purify  itself  by  slow  degrees. 

83 


THE  CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

All  the  sewers  of  Chicago  in  the  old  days 
emptied  into  the  Chicago  river  and  so  into  the 
lake,  or  emptied  directly  into  the  lake  itself. 

At  the  head  of  the  South  Branch  of  the 
Chicago  river  at  Bridgeport  the  state  of  Illi- 
nois owned  a  pumping  station,  through  which 
water  was  lifted  into  the  summit  level  of  the 
Illinois  and  Michigan  canal.  Water  it  was 
called  by  courtesy.  At  the  side  of  the  pump- 
ing station  was  the  outlet  of  a  branch  called 
"  Bubbly  Creek  "  from  the  gas  which  boiled  out 
of  it  continually  from  decaying  animal  mat- 
ter beneath  the  surface.  At  the  other  end  of 
Bubbly  Creek  were  the  Stock  Yards  and  Pack- 
ingtown,  and  for  years  without  number  all 
the  waste  from  the  animals  slaughtered  in 
Packingtown  and  its  vicinity  went  into  Bubbly 
Creek.  This  creek  had  no  natural  current  ex- 
cept when  there  was  a  heavy  rain,  which  set  it 
forward  a  little  into  the  river.  Sewers  pour- 
ing into  it  kept  up  a  current  of  perhaps  a  third 
of  a  mile  a  day.  Entrails  of  animals,  filth  un- 
speakable, floated  or  sank  to  the  bottom  of  the 

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putrid  mess,  black  as  ink,  covered  with  black 
scum,  and  smelling  so  foully  that  the  name 
"  Bridgeport "  was  hated  all  over  Chicago  as 
the  name  of  the  ill-smelling  southwest  wind. 
Chickens  scratched  in  the  scum  on  the  river, 
and  children,  to  go  swimming  in  the  murky 
semi-solid,  had  first  to  push  the  floating  stuff 
away  with  sticks  and  clear  a  place. 

This  was  the  water  which  with  criminal  reck- 
lessness Chicago  poured  for  a  generation  into 
the  old  Illinois  and  Michigan  canal;  and  the 
horror  and  the  foul  odor  of  it  were  apparent 
for  one  hundred  miles  below  Chicago.  Farther 
than  that,  in  fact,  for  when  the  Illinois  river 
froze  in  the  winter  this  foul  contribution  from 
Chicago  actually  killed  the  fish. 

All  the  sewage,  however,  did  not  go  down  the 
back  way.  Much  of  it  went  out  into  Lake 
Michigan,  where  also  emptied  a  great  battery 
of  sewers,  and  where  empties  to-day  the  whole 
South  Chicago  sewage  system.  Then  from  sta- 
tions along  the  shore  Chicago  set  out  her  intake 
water  pipes,  and  drew  back  and  used  for  drink- 

85 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

ing  water  the  typhoid  germs  and  other  forms 
of  disease  she  had  recently  rid  herself  of.  This 
state  of  affairs  went  on  for  decades,  while  the 
city  worked  itself  to  a  condition  in  which 
typhoid  was  endemic,  and  every  paper  in  the 
city  carried  a  line  beseeching  the  people  to  "  boil 
the  water."  Then  Chicago  cast  about  for  some 
means  to  divert  this  sewage  and  purify  her 
water.  She  created  a  Sanitary  District,  and  at 
enormous  expense  cut  a  ship  canal  through  the 
rock  of  the  Chicago  Divide  to  make  her  whole 
river  run  down  the  Illinois  to  the  Mississippi. 
She  reorganized  her  sewage  system  so  as  to 
divert  most  of  it  into  the  river  and  send  it  down 
the  canal,  and  she  secured  a  permit  from  the 
government  and  a  law  from  the  state  by  which 
she  must  dilute  the  sewage  with  lake  water  in 
enormous  proportions.  In  other  words,  she  will 
save  her  own  lake  water,  but  she  will  still  pour 
everything  into  running  water  and  let  the  cities 
down  the  valley  stand  the  consequences. 

As  a  ship  channel  Chicago's  sanitary  canal 
is  a  great  success  and  will  return  richly  to  the 

86 


MUNICIPAL   SUPPLY 

city.  As  a  power  canal  it  is  of  the  highest 
value.  But  as  a  sanitary  project  it  is  only  a 
flushing  channel  for  the  lake,  a  temporary  re- 
lief, until  Chicago  can  begin  a  sewage  disposal 
system.  To  waste  the  effluvia  and  sewage  of 
2,000,000  people,  containing  phosphates  needed 
by  the  soil,  is  a  crime  which  civilization  will 
not  long  permit.  But  to  pollute  running  water 
with  it  even  under  dilution  is  equally  criminal ; 
and  before  long  Chicago  will  have  reached  the 
limit  of  dilution  while  her  population  will  still 
increase. 

Many  of  our  principal  cities  are  situated  upon 
the  seaboard,  where  the  discharge  of  their 
waste  does  not  affect  running  water  which  is 
to  be  needed  again  for  any  purpose  whatever; 
as  New  York  and  San  Francisco,  Seattle  and 
Boston.  But  even  in  these  cases  the  continual 
emptying  of  sewage  and  garbage  into  the  sea 
creates  a  condition  upon  the  adjacent  shores 
which  in  time  becomes  impossible ;  and  the  eco- 
nomic loss  of  the  sewage  and  the  other  elements 
of  waste  is  so  great  that  it  cannot  be  long 

87 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

tolerated.  Total  destruction  of  dangerous 
germs  in  sewage  and  the  complete  utilization 
of  the  fertilizing  materials  contained  in  it  is 
an  essential  to  which  the  nation  will  in  time  be 
aroused. 

The  other  aspect  of  the  question,  that  of 
obtaining  pure  water  supplies,  grows  annually 
more  complicated.  It  becomes  necessary  under 
our  careless  conditions  of  living  for  every  great 
city  to  secure  an  entire  watershed  of  sufficient 
capacity  to  supply  its  needs,  and  to  devastate 
this  watershed,  driving  people  from  it,  so  that 
their  presence  may  not  contaminate  the  supply. 
Massachusetts  created  for  Boston  the  Metro- 
politan Water  Commission,  which  secured  a 
tract  of  land  many  miles  from  the  city,  removed 
farmsteads,  factories  and  whole  villages,  disin- 
fected the  land  upon  which  they  had  stood, 
scraped  away  the  humus  and  fertile  earth  to 
be  used  elsewhere,  and  in  the  place  of  a  lovely 
upland  valley  left  a  barren  expanse  of  sand 
and  gravel  which  was  gradually  overflowed 
and  became  the  bed  of  an  immense  series  of 

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MUNICIPAL   SUPPLY 

reservoirs,  held  in  check  by  the  Wachusett 
dam. 

New  York,  which  has  long  depended  upon  the 
use  of  the  Croton  river  watershed,  now  finds 
that  supply  growing  insufficient,  and  is  spend- 
ing almost  uncounted  millions  of  dollars  to  se- 
cure in  the  Catskills  a  great  drainage  shed 
embracing  the  supplies  of  several  rivers,  and 
to  bring  this  supply  to  New  York.  A  costly 
aqueduct  more  than  one  hundred  miles  in 
length,  involving  a  steep  descent  down  from 
the  mountains  and  a  tunnel  more  than  one  hun- 
dred feet  deep  for  siphoning  the  water  under 
enormous  pressure  under  the  Hudson  river, 
are  but  single  features  of  a  project  upon  which 
thousands  of  men  are  involved  and  which  when 
completed  will  give  the  city  an  abundant  sup- 
ply for  many  years,  but  which  renders  desolate 
and  otherwise  useless  a  great  area  of  land. 

Such  isolation  of  land  for  municipal  supply 
would  not  be  necessary  if  those  who  dwell  either 
in  farmsteads  or  in  cities  and  villages  upon  the 
watersheds  were  educated  in  proper  sanitation 

89 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

and  in  the  conservation  of  the  home  sewage. 
And  they  will  not  be  so  educated,  and  directed 
by  the  state  toward  such  a  course,  until  the 
cities  themselves  follow  that  course.  A  farm- 
ing or  municipal  community  living  upon  the 
watershed  of  a  river  under  proper  conditions 
should  leave  that  stream  as  pure  and  as  clean  as 
though  there  were  no  community  there.  And 
in  time  that  condition  will  obtain  upon  every 
river  in  America. 

Meanwhile  many  other  cities  are  compelled 
to  go  as  far  afield  as  New  York  for  their  water 
supply;  and  in  doing  so  they  are  finding  that 
one  department  of  water  conservation  is  cer- 
tain to  be  bound  up  with  another ;  and  that  any 
measure  we  may  take  to  save  and  use  water 
results  in  profits  from  sources  we  have  not 
anticipated.  Thus  we  may  cite  the  example  of 
Los  Angeles.  Seeking  an  abundant  supply  of 
water  in  an  almost  desert  region  Los  Angeles 
went  far  afield,  nearly  two  hundred  miles  away, 
to  the  snow-capped  mountains,  and  dammed 
and  reservoired  Owen  lake  and  river  far  up 

90 


MUNICIPAL   SUPPLY 

in  the  highlands.  From  there  to  the  city  an 
aqueduct,  part  of  the  way  open  concrete  canal, 
part  of  the  way  tunnel,  part  of  the  way  concrete 
flume  pitching  steeply  down  the  hillside  conveys 
the  water.  But  when  the  whole  project,  costing 
$40,000,000  was  well  under  way  someone  dis- 
covered that  there  was  enormous  power  devel- 
oped in  bringing  this  water  down  the  hillside. 
An  investigation  developed  that  the  power  was 
more  than  enough  to  pay  for  the  whole  work; 
and  so  Los  Angeles  is  to  have  an  abundant 
water  supply  from  clear  mountain  sources,  and 
instead  of  having  a  heavy  municipal  debt  on 
account  of  it  will  have  cheap  and  abundant 
waterpower  to  sell  to  pay  the  debt  and  after 
that  in  perpetuity  a  steady  income  to  carry  on 
beautiful  public  works.  The  water  supply 
beside  being  enough  for  domestic  use  leaves 
also  a  great  deal  for  irrigation;  and  the  land 
about  the  city  will  supply  fruit  and  truck  for 
its  inhabitants.  Three  elements  of  Conserva- 
tion are  here  developed  together,  power,  irriga- 
tion and  domestic  supply;  and  like  all  the  other 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

instances  we  have  examined  and  shall  examine, 
they  have  their  base  upon  a  wat£r  farm  — 
upon  a  storage  basin  at  headwaters. 

So  has  the  plan  which  San  Francisco  is  mak- 
ing to  expend  $50,000,000  in  a  similar  project. 
In  the  chapter  on  power  we  shall  see  how  this 
city  is  surrounded  and  controlled  by  a  great 
corporation  which  has  secured  all  the  available 
lakes  and  rivers  within  easy  reach  of  the  city, 
both  for  municipal  supply  and  for  electrical 
power.  The  domestic  supply  furnished  by 
private  interests  being  insufficient  the  city  cast 
about  for  another;  and  the  nearest  available 
supply  was  that  of  the  Tuolumne  river  where 
it  flows  through  the  Hetch-Hetchy  valley  in 
Yosemite  National  Park. 

This  beautiful  valley  will  never  have  a  higher 
function  to  perform  than  to  act  as  a  storage 
reservoir  for  the  great  port  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  away.  With  a  beautiful  dam  at 
its  outlet,  the  water  raised  to  a  high  and  steady 
level,  pure  and  uncontaminated,  it  will  make 
of  this  mountain-girt  canon  one  of  the  most 

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MUNICIPAL   SUPPLY 

beautiful  places  in  the  world  and  add  indescrib- 
ably to  the  attractions  of  that  part  of  Yosemite. 

Like  Los  Angeles,  San  Francisco  —  not 
working  through  a  corporation  or  benefitting 
any  private  interest,  but  as  a  public  body  work- 
ing for  the  people  themselves  —  will  establish 
here  a  water  farm  from  which  to  supply  its 
table.  Enough  water  can  be  stored  here  to 
give  the  city  a  daily  supply  of  200,000,000 
gallons,  more  than  four  times  as  much  as  it 
uses  to-day.  And  this  water  conducted  as  that 
for  Los  Angeles  is  conducted,  through  aque- 
ducts and  conduits,  down  from  the  mountains, 
will  on  its  way  create  enough  waterpower  to 
set  the  city  free  from  the  control  of  the  single 
corporation  which  now  owns  the  Central  Cali- 
fornia electrical  business. 

Mining  white  coal  —  we  find  these  two  great 
cities  of  California  going  at  it  on  their  own 
account,  as  a  collateral  work  with  water  farm- 
ing; and  what  they  are  doing  the  cities  to  the 
north  of  them  must  do,  and  Chicago  is  already 
doing.  We  cannot  segregate  a  single  instance 

93 


THE    CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

of  the  use  of  water  and  find  the  water  useful 
for  nothing  else.  The  federal  government 
has  tried  that  upon  the  navigable  rivers  and 
has  found  that  every  step  taken  upon  them, 
every  task  carried  out,  improves  some  other 
element  even  more  than  it  does  navigation. 
The  states  have  tried  it  with  the  same  result. 
The  cities  are  trying  it  and  the  same  thing  hap- 
pens. All  the  elements  which  together  consti- 
tute the  conservation  of  water  and  which  in 
the  end  are  all  based  upon  Ezry  Perkins* 
bottom  land  and  the  water  farm  the  city  man 
established  there,  are  so  closely  linked  up  that 
whichever  one  we  attempt  to  develop  the  others 
advance  with  it. 

The  total  municipal  supply  of  the  United 
States  to-day,  not  counting  the  half  of  the  popu- 
lation which  lives  upon  wells,  is  about  14,500 
second  feet,  half  the  normal  low  water  flow  of 
the  Mississippi  above  the  Illinois.  Taken  a 
little  here,  a  little  there  from  many  rivers,  it 
has  no  appreciable  effect  upon  most  of  them. 
The  great  bulk  of  it,  used  for  flushing,  if  prop- 

94 


MUNICIPAL   SUPPLY 

erly  treated  after  it  returns  to  the  sewers,  will 
flow  back  into  the  river  as  pure  and  usable  as 
it  left  them.  Probably  not  2,000  second  feet 
will  be  permanently  lost  from  our  rivers. 

The  purification  of  sewage  and  the  saving 
of  the  useful  material  in  it  is  a  matter  which 
cities  and  individual  factories  must  take  up  for 
themselves;  but  they  must  be  advised  and 
helped  by  public  commissions.  The  actual  puri- 
fication of  the  rivers  Uncle  Sam  and  the  States 
can  compel.  They  have  only  to  insist  that  within 
a  given  period  all  cities  shall  cease  discharging 
sewage  into  the  running  streams  and  all  facto- 
ries from  spilling  waste  into  them  and  an  eco- 
nomic revolution  will  be  set  on  foot.  In  a 
twinkling,  after  the  first  complaints  have 
ceased,  the  profitable  side  of  the  undertaking 
will  appear,  and  the  work  will  advance  steadily 
and  rapidly.  As  storage  advances  at  head- 
waters and  protective  measures  against  ero- 
sion are  undertaken  the  streams  will  become 
clearer,  and  the  unhealthful  low  water  seasons 
will  cease.  Floods,  which  scour  pollution  into 

95 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

the  streams,  will  cease.  And  in  the  end  noth- 
ing is  more  certain  than  that  every  river  will 
be  made  pure  and  kept  undefiled,  municipal 
supplies  will  be  available  from  each  of  them, 
and  the  problems  of  the  cities  will  be  simplified 
in  the  same  measure  that  domestic  economy  is 
increased. 


CHAPTER   V 

WATERPOWER,    THE    MINING   OF   THE    WHITE 
COAL 

Every  mountain  brook,  bursting  over  the 
edge  of  a  precipice  and  plunging  into  the  bed 
of  a  ravine  below;  every  leaping  rapid,  smoth- 
ered in  its  own  foam;  every  swift-running 
river,  across  which  a  dam  can  be  placed  to  im- 
prove navigation,  is  a  mine  of  the  new  fuel, 
white  coal,  eternal  and  inexhaustible.  The 
mining  of  this  new  fuel  has  become  one  of  the 
greatest  industries  of  the  day ;  but  we  are  only 
seeing  it  in  its  infancy.  For  generations  it  will 
go  on  developing  and  increasing,  becoming  at 
every  step  more  wonderful  and  more  perfect. 
As  we  have  freed  the  factory  from  the  thral- 
dom of  the  mill  wheel  by  interposing  the  elec- 
trical generator  and  the  copper  wire,  so  we  shall 
free  it  in  time  even  from  the  tenuous  wire  which 
now  links  it  to  the  river  side,  and  drift  the 
7  97 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

power  to  its  looms  and  spindles  by  some  myste- 
rious direction  through  the  air. 

Traveling  through  the  country  to-day  one 
comes  continually  upon  the  sign  of  this  new 
industry.  Tall  steel  poles,  carrying  at  their 
summits  immense  insulators,  supporting  the 
slender  wires  which  bear  the  high-tension  elec- 
tric currents,  generated  by  water  power,  reach 
out  in  every  direction  from  the  central  station 
and  extend  fifty,  one  hundred,  even  two  hun- 
dred miles.  In  ten  years  they  will  reach  a  thou- 
sand miles,  and  in  a  generation  we  might,  if  we 
would,  light  New  York  with  power  obtained  in 
the  Sierras.  They  stride  over  hills  and  valleys, 
across  farms  and  through  villages;  and 
wherever  they  go  mills,  factories,  water-pump- 
ing stations,  city  lighting  plants,  even  the 
farms,  abandon  black  coal,  abandon  furnaces 
and  stoves,  abandon  boilers  and  old-fashioned 
engines,  and  tap  the  slender  wires  for  the  new 
power  —  the  White  Coal  of  the  Twentieth 
Century. 

From  Niagara  into  Canada  and  New  York, 
98 


MINING   OF   WHITE   COAL 

from  the  numberless  falls  of  the  Coosa  and  the 
Tennessee,  from  the  eastern  fall  line  of  the 
Appalachians,  from  the  torrents  of  the  Cas- 
cades and  the  Sierras  and  the  mighty  rapids  of 
the  Columbia,  from  the  eternal  discharge  of 
Sault  Ste.  Marie  and  of  the  Chicago  Sanitary 
Canal,  and  from  thousands  and  doubling  thou- 
sands of  other  waterfalls  where  the  new 
"  hydro-electric  "  stations  have  been  installed  to 
turn  the  rainfall  into  power,  these  wires  reach 
out. 

Through  them  with  infinite  speed  flashes  the 
new  power  of  water-generated  electricity. 
That  limpid  stream,  which  has  for  so  many 
centuries  plunged  unhindered  down  the  hill- 
side, wasting  its  force,  now  imprisoned  behind 
a  dam  and  led  in  solid  column  through  a  pen- 
stock upon  a  turbine  —  that  force  of  position 
which  it  abandons  on  falling  from  an  upper  to 
a  lower  level,  is  now  gathered  into  these  slender 
wires  and  through  them  is  led  away  to.  do  the 
work  of  the  world;  while,  below,  the  brook 
flows  on  as  freely  as  before! 

99 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

What  is  this  power,  this  new  white  fuel  that 
we  are  developing  from  the  running  streams? 
It  is  the  power  of  the  water  running  over  the 
wheel  beside  which  your  father  played  in  boy- 
hood. I  have  in  mind  such  a  mill  now,  on  a 
hillside  in  East  Tennessee,  above  the  swift- 
flowing  Doe  near  where  it  enters  into  the  Wa- 
tauga.  It  is  a  historic  spot,  this  Happy  Valley 
country  whence  Shelby  and  Sevier  marched  to 
the  battle  of  King's  Mountain,  and  it  is  the 
grandson  of  one  of  the  men  who  marched  with 
him  who  runs  the  mill  at  Valley  Forge  on  the 
steep  hillside  above  the  Doe. 

The  Doe  itself  is  a  swift  and  powerful 
stream,  and  a  generation  ago  it  furnished  the 
power  which  turned  the  enormous  triphammers 
which  pounded  the  iron  ingots  of  the  Tennes- 
see moutains  into  bar  iron  for  the  lower 
river  trade.  But  the  old  dams  are  washed 
away,  the  old  mills  and  the  forges  are  gone,  and 
there  remains  only,  far  up  the  hillside,  a  mill- 
shed  and  a  great  wheel,  forty  feet  or  more  in 
diameter  —  'Lije  Williams'  grist  mill.  A  hun- 

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MINING   OF   WHITE    COAL 

dred  yards  back  of  the  mill  is  the  little  garden 
and  the  cottage  where  'Lije  and  his  wife  wait 
for  their  customers,  and  see  them  come  across 
the  ford  or  the  slender  hanging  bridge  over  the 
Doe,  bringing  the  corn  to  be  ground. 

From  the  house  to  the  mill  runs  a  slender 
brook,  to  gather  its  waters  in  a  "forebay"  not 
more  than  ten  feet  across.  And  from  this  fore- 
bay  runs  a  four  inch  wide  flume,  leading  out 
to  the  top  of  the  immense  wheel.  The  wheel 
is  rimmed  with  buckets,  and  when  there  is  corn 
to  be  ground,  and  when  the  little  brook  has 
filled  the  forebay  with  water  enough  to  run  the 
mill  for  thirty  minutes  or  an  hour,  'Lije  throws 
the  corn  in  the  hopper,  and  opens  the  tiny  sluice 
gate.  The  water  runs  out  and  fills  the  buckets, 
the  ancient  wheel  revolves,  the  mill  stones  be- 
gin to  grumble,  and  soon  out  comes  the  grist. 
A  handful  of  it  from  every  peck  —  that  is  the 
miller's  toll  for  the  grinding.  The  Doe  is  too 
big  and  too  intractable  for  'Lije  Williams  to 
harness  it.  The  needs  of  the  mountaineer  do 
not  require  it.  But  some  of  these  days  there 

101 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

will  be  erected  across  the  Doe  not  one  dam  but 
a  dozen  at  different  points,  each  a  tremendous 
concrete  structure  one  hundred  feet  or  more  in 
height,  penning  up  the  spring  flood  water,  and 
providing  a  head  from  which  it  will  descend  all 
through  the  year,  steadily,  night  and  day,  spin- 
ning the  electric  generators  and  sending  power 
through  its  wires  out  to  distant  lands.  The 
peace  and  quiet  of  Happy  Valley  will  be 
disturbed  only  when  the  workmen  are  build- 
ing the  dam.  The  old  grist  mill  will  still  con- 
tinue turning  on  the  hillside.  But  in  the  valley 
below  it  the  concrete  dam,  the  tile-roofed 
power  house  without  chimney  or  boiler,  the  cop- 
per wires  on  their  tall  towers  striding  over  the 
mountains,  the  ceaseless  purring  of  the  power- 
makers,  will  stand  in  sharp  contrast  with  the 
old  times,  marking  the  changes  of  the  new. 
'Lije  Williams  mined  the  white  coal  as  a  far- 
mer in  Illinois  digs  black  fuel  from  the  out- 
cropping on  his  farm;  but  the  new  plant  will 
be  a  modern  and  scientific  mine. 

The  power  that  turns  the  old  wheel  on  the 
1 02 


MINING   OF   WHITE   COAL 

hillside  is  the  weight  of  the  water  which  fills 
the  buckets  —  the  force  of  gravity.  And  it 
is  exactly  the  same  force  in  the  water  shooting 
with  incredible  speed  down  the  mountainside 
which  spins  the  turbines  and  thrills  the  wire  of 
the  largest  power  plants  of  to-day.  It  is  the 
same  force  which  lures  all  rivers  to  the  sea. 
Some  day  we  shall  find  means  to  make  each 
river  turn  mill  wheels  as  it  runs,  even  the 
mighty  Mississippi ;  but  to-day  we  can  only  use 
this  where  there  exists  by  nature  an  abrupt 
change  of  level,  like  a  waterfall  or  rapid,  or 
where  we  can  create  such  a  change  of  level  by 
holding  the  water  back  behind  a  dam.  This 
change  of  level,  or  rather  the  difference  between 
the  height  of  the  water  above  the  dam  and  the 
height  below,  is  called  a  "head  "  and  from  it 
we  compute  how  much  power  a  given  quantity 
of  water  will  develop. 

Rivers,  as  we  have  seen,  are  surveyed  and 
measured  in  "  second  feet  "  of  running  water — 
the  amount  of  water  in  cubic  feet  which  passes 
a  given  place  each  second.  When  we  wish  to 

103 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

develop  a  waterpower  we  must  first  determine 
how  much  water  falls  each  year  on  the  water- 
shed above  the  dam  and  what  proportion  runs 
off  through  the  river.  Then  we  must  discover 
how  much  of  the  unnecessary  flood  water  we 
can  store  up  to  release  in  dry  times,  and  com- 
pute the  lowest  flow  we  need  expect  to  get. 
If  there  are  at  least  300  days  in  the  year  when 
we  can  be  certain  of  a  flow  of  3,000  second 
feet  that  is  the  amount  for  which  a  plant  can 
be  profitably  installed. 

A  horsepower  is  the  power  needed  to  lift 
550  pounds  one  foot  in  one  second.  Measured 
in  electric  energy  it  is  746  watts;  or  a  kilowatt, 
a  thousand  watts,  is  1.34  horsepower.  A  cubic 
foot  of  water  weighs  62.5  pounds.  Therefore 
8.8  cubic  feet  falling  one  foot  each  second  are 
equal  to  a  horsepower;  but  as  machinery  is 
not  perfect  and  we  lose  something  in  the  tur- 
bine, something  in  the  generator,  and  some- 
thing more  in  transmission,  we  figure  that 
twelve  second  feet  for  every  foot  of  fall  con- 
stitute a  horsepower.  Then  if  our  river  has 

104 


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MINING   OF   WHITE   COAL 

3,000  second  feet  of  flow  and  an  efficient 
"  head "  of  twelve  feet  it  will  produce  con- 
tinually 3,000  horsepower.  But  if  there  is  a 
large  pond  above  the  dam  for  storing  water, 
and  if  the  power  is  needed  only  in  the  day 
time,  the  whole  night  flow  of  the  river  can  be 
saved  in  the  pond  and  6,000  second  feet  run 
through  during  the  day,  giving  6,000  horse- 
power. This  is  the  value  of  the  old  mill  pond 
— the  value  of  pondage,  as  distinct  from  stor- 
age. Storage  carries  a  river  from  high 
season  through  low  season  to  a  high  season 
again;  pondage  carries  a  local  mill  over  the 
fluctuations  of  a  day  and  night. 

The  little  mill  on  the  hillside  over  the  Doe 
was  the  most  primitive  of  all  American  water- 
wheels.  Much  larger  and  more  complete  estab- 
lishments were  set  on  every  brook  and  river 
of  New  England  to  turn  the  sawmills  which 
ate  up  the  white  pine  forests;  and  in  Wiscon- 
sin and  Michigan  and  Minnesota  the  mill 
wheels  still  whirr  over  the  tumbling  water,  turn- 
ing logs  into  lumber.  But  there  came  a  larger 

105 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

development  beginning  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago 
and  extending  down  to  our  own  time  —  the 
development  of  larger  powers  which  were  more 
costly  and  more  powerful  than  a  single  factory 
needed.  Dams  were  built  in  the  Merrimac  at 
Lowell,  in  the  Connecticut  at  Holyoke  and  at 
many  other  places  which  turned  all  the  water 
of  the  river  into  a  head  canal.  This  canal 
extended  for  a  mile  or  more  on  a  level  and  then 
spilled  its  water  at  the  end  into  another  canal 
12  or  15  feet  lower,  which  ran  back  parallel 
with  the  upper  one  and  a  hundred  yards  from 
it.  Parallel  with  this  was  often  a  third  fifteen 
feet  lower  yet,  and  at  the  lower  end  of  this  the 
water  spilled  back  into  the  river. 

In  this  development  factories  located  between 
the  parallel  canals,  and  each  mill  drew  water 
from  the  canal  at  its  upper  or  front  door,  and 
after  running  it  through  the  turbines  shot  it 
out  into  the  canal  at  the  back.  As  a  result  a 
dozen  to  two  score  mills  were  established  on  a 
single  waterpower,  each  having  its  machinery 
operated,  and  no  one  of  them  having  to  bear 

1 06 


MINING   OF   WHITE    COAL 

the  whole  development.  This  cheap  power 
thus  generated  gave  rise  to  the  great  milling 
industry  of  New  England.  Paper  mills,  grind- 
ing rags  and  wood  pulp  into  paper,  cotton  mills 
spinning  and  weaving  cotton  cloth,  woolen 
mills,  sprang  up  in  every  village  which  had  a 
waterpower,  and  local  industry  leading  to  such 
big  manufacturing  cities  as  those  I  have  named, 
to  Lewiston,  Dover,  Manchester,  'and  many 
more,  brought  prosperity  to  New  England. 
This  was  white  coal  mining  of  a  good  type. 

Even  in  this  method,  however,  the  mill  must 
come  to  the  mine.  Power  can  only  be  trans- 
mitted mechanically  a  short  distance  and  mills 
which  needed  waterpower  must  locate  within  a 
stone's  throw  of  the  river  bank.  In  many  in- 
stances this  was  practical;  but  there  remained 
such  falls  as  Shawinigan,  in  the  wilderness  of 
Canada,  Muscle  Shoals  and  the  Suck  in  the 
Tennessee,  the  falls  of  the  Coosa,and  countless 
others  in  the  western  mountains  which  were 
not  near  cities  or  in  locations  where  cities  could 
be  profitably  developed.  Often  an  existing  city 

107 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

was  twenty  to  fifty  miles  from  a  waterfall  the 
water  of  which  went  to  waste.  So  when  the 
first  electric  dynamo  was  coupled  to  the  top  of 
a  turbine  shaft,  and  the  force  which  dragged 
the  water  (downhill  was  turned  into  an  electric 
current  a  new  era  began.  It  continued  develop- 
ing rapidly  as  means  were  found  to  send  the 
power  eight  or  ten  miles  from  the  wheels  —  to 
distribute  it  to  motors  set  in  shops  all  over  the 
city ;  to  drive  the  street  railways  and  to  light  the 
cities  with  it.  Then  when  it  could  be  carried 
one  hundred  miles  more  distant  waterfalls  came 
into  use  to  carry  city  burdens;  and  with  every 
additional  mile  this  has  increased  until  to-day 
St.  Louis  is  preparing  to  cure  much  of  her 
smoke  nuisance  by  bringing  power  by  wire 
from  the  falls  of  the  Mississippi  at  Keokuk, 
Iowa,  one  hundred  and  eighty  miles  away. 

This  is  done  by  turning  out  electric  current 
at  high  pressure,  in  alternating  or  many-phase 
currents,  and  sending  it  through  the  wires  at 
a  tension  of  50,000  volts. 

As  this  business  has  grown  many  problems 
108 


MINING   OF   WHITE   COAL 

have  come  up  and  the  solution  of  them  has 
made  the  development  of  waterpower  a  ques- 
tion of  national  importance.  The  uses  of  elec- 
tricity are  very  varied.  It  is  needed  twenty- 
four  hours  in  the  day  to  pump  water  in  city 
mains.  It  is  needed  every  hour  of  the  day  to 
operate  railways  and  to  drive  many  mills. 
Other  mills  need  power  only  eight,  nine  or  ten 
hours  during  the  heart  of  the  day.  Street  rail- 
ways need  their  greatest  power  at  irregular 
periods  but  chiefly  in  the  so-called  "  rush " 
hours  at  morning  and  night  when  people  are 
going  to  and  from  work,  and  at  the  theater 
hour.  City  lighting  requires  its  heaviest  power 
from  six  at  night  to  one  in  the  morning,  and  the 
demand  for  domestic  lighting  comes  in  the  early 
morning  and  in  the  evening.  Paper  mills  take 
power  twenty-four  hours,  steadily,  and  so  do 
nitrate  and  other  chemical  electrical  works. 
This  wide  variation  in  demand  makes  it  certain 
that  a  power  plant  which  is  sufficient  to  support 
the  "  peak  "  load  of  any  business  will  have  sur- 
plus power  during  the  rest  of  the  day  and  night 

109 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

—  and  yet  the  investment  often  requires  con- 
stant earning  at  full  capacity. 

There  has  grown  up,  therefore,  the  very 
profitable  practice  of  "  linking  up  "  plants  — 
that  is,  combining  in  the  same  switchboard  a 
large  number  of  generating  stations,  which 
serve  a  wide  variety  of  industries.  Then  their 
combined  power  is  always  at  the  disposal  of  the 
enterprise  which  happens  at  any  given  time 
to  be  calling  for  its  "  peak  "  or  highest  load, 
and  there  is  no  period  of  the  day  when  they  are 
required  to  shut  down.  Of  course  the  ideal 
situation  is  never  thus  attained,  but  every 
station  in  the  linking  up  secures  some  benefit. 

Out  of  this  and  out  of  other  economic  con- 
'ditions  with  which  we  have  nothing  to  do  here 
grows  a  tendency  to  combine  and  control 
waterpower  development  under  a  single  head; 
and  nearly  all  the  great  waterpower  companies 
are  already  in  this  way  loosely  associated  to- 
gether so  that  they  operate  in  harmony.  As 
this  tendency  increases  this  association  inclines 
to  become  a  monopoly  with  very  harmful  possi- 

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MINING   OF   WHITE   COAL 

bilities  to  the  public,  as  will  be  seen  when  we 
consider  the  industries  which  depend  upon 
power.  But  if  this  combination  is  taken  under 
public  regulation  and  more  and  more  under 
public  control  it  becomes  a  tremendous  factor 
for  public  economy  and  public  good.  Let  us 
see  how  this  works  out. 

The  value  of  waterpower,  or  the  cost  of  the 
electric  power  which  it  generates,  depends  upon 
the  local  cost  of  steam  power.  At  St.  Anth- 
ony's Falls  waterpower,  pure  and  simple,  on 
the  turbine  wheel,  is  sold  for  $6  a  horsepower 
year  for  a  twenty- four  hour  day;  and  at  this 
rate  it  costs  one  cent  to  grind  a  barrel  of  flour. 
To  generate  a  twenty-four  hour  horsepower 
from  steam  in  Minneapolis  costs  about  $38  a 
year,  and  at  this  rate  it  costs  more  than  six 
cents  to  grind  a  barrel  of  flour.  Electric 
power  from  the  power  plant  below  the  falls  is 
therefore  sold  close  to  this,  at  $35  a  year. 
Augusta,  Georgia,  develops  waterpower  in 
her  own  canals  and  with  her  own  dam,  and 
sells  it  to  her  millers  on  the  wheel  at  $5.50  a 

in 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

year  for  an  eleven  hour  day  —  a  very  low 
price.  In  Chicago  power  from  coal  is  cheap, 
and  ten  hour  electric  power  costs  from  $15  to 
$18  a  year.  In  Spokane,  Washington,  the  same 
power,  more  cheaply  generated,  sells  for  $40  a 
year,  because  the  equivalent  fuel  is  so  costly; 
and  in  Nevada,  where  coal  is  still  higher,  buy- 
ers must  pay  $100  for  it. 

The  water  from  which  this  power  is  gener- 
ated belongs  to  the  public  and  the  public  right 
to  it  is  recognized  by  many  of  our  states,  by 
Congress  and  by  nearly  all  foreign  countries. 
In  Norway  the  government  develops  power  and 
rents  it,  or  sells  the  concession  on  condition  that 
the  power  be  sold  cheaply.  In  Switzerland  no 
man  may  develop  a  waterpower  without  con- 
sent of  the  legislature  and  then  he  must  pay  a 
certain  tax  every  year.  France  is  consider- 
ing a  law  by  which  waterpower  franchises  will 
not  only  be  taxed,  but  the  entire  plant  as  well 
as  the  franchise  reverts  to  the  Government  at 
the  end  of  fifty  years.  In  our  own  country 
Congress  has  control  of  all  waterpower  de- 

112 


MINING   OF   WHITE    COAL 

veloped  in  navigable  streams,  and  for  a  gener- 
ation has  been  giving  dam  privileges  away 
for  nothing.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  however,  stopped 
that  and  now  a  tax  of  varying  proportions  run- 
ning from  fifty  cents  to  two  dollars  a  horse- 
power year  is  put  on  all  power  taken  over  a 
dam  in  a  navigable  stream.  As  a  general  thing 
also  the  dam  builder  is  required  to  build  at  his 
own  expense  the  lock  to  pass  vessels  by  the 
dam.  This  sometimes  costs  $500,000.  The 
new  dam  lock  at  Keokuk  on  the  Mississippi 
will  cost  more  than  twice  that.  Congress  has 
the  right  to  amend  every  existing  act  on  water- 
power  and  may  increase  these  taxes  when  it 
sees  fit  to  do  so. 

Rivers  which  are  not  navigable,  however,  are 
the  property  of  the  states  and  the  states  must 
regulate  them  and  assess  the  taxes  for  the  use 
of  power.  Many  states  have  gone  forward  in 
this  direction  rapidly,  and  none  farther  than 
Wisconsin  and  Oregon.  In  Wisconsin  no 
person  may  build  a  dam  without  a  permit  from 
the  state  forester.  His  privilege  is  only  good 
8  113 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

for  twenty  years  and  he  must  pay  a  regular 
tax  per  horsepower  to  the  state.  In  addition, 
as  we  have  seen,  he  must  also  support  the  res- 
ervoir system  at  headwaters.  The  tax  in  Wis- 
consin is  used  to  increase  the  forest  reservation. 

In  Oregon  the  user  of  waterpower  must  have 
a  state  license  for  a  limited  period  and  must 
pay  a  tax  ranging  from  fifty  cents  to  two  dol- 
lars for  each  theoretical  horsepower  —  that  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  550  pounds  of  water  falling 
one  foot  each  second.  That  really  amounts  to 
a  tax  of  about  $3.25  on  every  horsepower  de- 
livered by  wire,  which  is  the  fairest  tax  yet 
assessed  by  any  American  state. 

There  are  many  complicating  questions  how- 
ever, yet  to  solve,  and  these  are  involved  with 
the  question  of  water  titles  which  we  shall 
discuss  under  the  head  of  irrigation. 

It  is  most  necessary,  however,  to  work  out 
some  system  of  control  over  rivers  which  con- 
cern several  states,  under  which  they  can  be 
reservoired  at  the  common  expense  of  all  those 
who  benefit,  and  under  which  taxes,  state  and 

114 


MINING   OF   WHITE   COAL 

national,  can  be  made  equitable.  Thus  when 
we  revert  to  the  Connecticut  River  we  find 
that  by  any  comprehensive  system  of  control 
New  Hampshire  and  Vermont  will  do  the 
greater  part  of  the  reservoiring  while  Massa- 
chusetts and  Connecticut  will  use  the  greater 
part  of  the  power  and  get  practically  all  the 
navigation  benefit.  Some  system  must  be  found 
by  which  the  work  of  ameliorating  the  river  — 
reservoiring  it  and  planting  forests  above  the 
reservoirs,  —  can  be  done  under  a  big  bond 
issue;  and  the  bonds  retired  by  a  uniform  tax 
per  horsepower  on  the  improvement  in  water- 
power  (a  tax  most  mill  owners  are  glad  to  pay 
if  they  can  have  floods  and  droughts  elimi- 
nated) a  smaller  tax  on  benefits  from  flood 
protection,  and  a  lump  sum  from  the  federal 
government  (or  a  series  of  annual  payments) 
representing  the  navigation  improvement. 

A  corporation  not-for-profit,  like  the  Ge- 
nossenschaft  of  Bohemia,  or  like  the  Improve- 
ment Association  of  Wisconsin,  chartered  by 
Congress,  might  secure  official  recognition  from 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

each  state.  The  power  of  eminent  domain 
would  be  conferred  by  Congress,  the  bonds 
guaranteed,  and  the  states  would  enact  laws 
imposing  the  necessary  taxes  in  their  own 
borders.  This  immense  project  for  the  Con- 
necticut would  cost  from  $50,000,00x3  to  $60,- 
000,000  but  it  would  return  under  ordinary 
charges  for  power  not  less  than  $15,000,000  a 
year  and  probably  more  than  that,  so  that  the 
tax  assessments  could  be  made  very  low. 

A  wiser  plan  would  be  for  the  four  states 
to  agree  upon  the  work,  and  apportion  the  cost 
among  themselves  according  to  the  benefit  each 
would  secure;  then  issue  the  bonds  and  con- 
tribute to  the  work,  and  themselves  tax  the 
benefits  and  retire  the  bonds. 

However  this  is  done,  state  control  must 
grow  stronger  each  year.  All  over  the  country 
cities  are  building  their  own  power  plants  and 
selling  power  to  their  citizens.  In  Illinois  the 
state  is  preparing  to  develop  more  than  100,- 
ooo  horsepower  and  Chicago  an  additional 
30,000  from  running  water  the  income  from 

116 


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MINING   OF   WHITE   COAL 

which  is  to  be  used  to  pay  for  a  magnificent 
navigable  channel  through  the  state  from  the 
Lakes  to  the  Mississippi.  When  this  is  done 
it  will  go  to  pay  for  other  state  improvements. 
This  is  the  path  we  must  follow  more  and 
more  —  first  state  taxes,  and  then  when  the 
cost  of  the  works  are  paid  back  in  profits,  state 
ownership  and  control  of  the  power  supply. 
By  this  means  this  great  resource  upon  which 
the  life  of  the  nation  depends  will  remain  under 
the  people,  and  the. income  from  it  will  relieve 
them  from  their  burden  of  taxation.  A  state 
is  like  a  big  family.  If  it  is  improvident  and 
gives  away  its  property,  if  it  makes  uncon- 
ditional and  perpetual  franchises  to  its  power, 
it  remains  poor.  Like  a  tenant,  who  owns  no 
land  of  his  own,  it  must  always  pay  rent,  and 
it  must  tax 'its  people  to  pay  rent.  But  if  it 
follows  the  example  of  Illinois,  of  Chicago,  of 
Augusta,  Georgia,  and  acquires  producing 
properties  such  as  waterpowers  it  dwells  at 
home,  is  its  own  landlord  and  receives  a 
steadily  increasing  income  which  it  can  spend 

117 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

on  beautiful  schools,  on  public  works,  on  good 
roads,  on  waterways,  on  a  new  sort  of  happier 
living  for  the  public  or  —  as  Germany  uses  hers 
—  to  provide  labor  and  wages  to  every  citizen 
of  the  republic. 

A  fair  tax  upon  each  horsepower  used  is  diffi- 
cult to  assess.  It  is  different  in  different  cir- 
cumstances. A  general  average,  which  could  be 
assessed  in  nearly  every  case  would  be  $5  a 
horsepower  year  —  but  it  must  be  accompanied 
by  a  state  commission  providing  that  the  selling 
price  of  the  power  shall  not  be  raised  to  com- 
pensate for  this.  Such  a  tax  levied  upon  the 
waterpower  in  the  navigable  rivers  of  the 
country  (and  accompanied  by  additional  dam 
development  to  enlarge  navigation)  would 
very  quickly  pay  back  into  the  national  treas- 
ury all  we  have  spent  on  river  improvement ;  or, 
in  the  form  of  interest  on  bonds,  would  pay  all 
that  we  need  to  complete  the  great  waterway 
projects  on  which  we  are  embarked. 


118 


CHAPTER   VI 

WATERPOWER     IN     NATIONAL     DEVELOPMENT 

Remarkable  changes  in  the  course  of  na- 
tional development  are  destined  to  come  during 
the  next  three  or  four  decades  as  the  result  of 
the  development  of  waterpower  and  the  exten- 
sion of  the  transmission  of  electric  power 
over  longer  distances.  With  remarkable  ra- 
pidity the  harnessing  of  waterfalls  will  go  on, 
and  enterprises  of  all  sorts  will  be  able  to 
locate  where  economic  conditions  make  it  de- 
sirable —  generally  along  the  navigable  water- 
ways where  transportation  problems  are  sim- 
plified. Freedom  from  smoke  and  from  the 
necessity  of  crowding  about  railway  terminals 
and  near  coal  centers  will  release  these  factories 
so  that  they  will  seek  freer  surroundings  and 
enable  their  people  to  shun  the  congested  city 
factory  districts.  The  example  of  transmission 

119 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

set  by  the  hydro-electric  development  will  not 
wait  long  before  it  spreads  to  the  coal  mines, 
and  we  shall  have  economical  and  smokeless 
power  houses  at  the  mines,  wiring  power  to  the 
cities  and  to  distant  factories,  instead  of  send- 
ing the  coal  to  them  by  rail.  The  development 
of  power  and  navigation  go  hand  in  hand  as  we 
shall  see  in  the  chapter  on  navigation,  and  the 
improvement  of  our  principal  rivers  and  even 
of  the  smaller  streams  will  for  several  decades 
to  come  create  an  increasing  amount  of  power 
available  for  manufacturing  purposes  adjacent 
to  the  water  routes. 

The  uses  of  this  power,  also,  are  being  widely 
extended,  and  their  influence  upon  national 
development  will  be  striking.  Fertilizers  for 
our  soils  will  be  made  out  of  the  air  by  elec- 
tricity; woolens  and  cottons  will  be  spun  and 
woven  even  more  than  they  are  now  by  elec- 
tricity; smelting  of  iron,  the  manufacture  of 
steel,  the  electrolytic  separation  of  copper  from 
its  ores,  will  depend  upon  hydro-electric  devel- 
opment. Railways  are  at  the  verge  of  electri- 

120 


NATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

fication.  In  addition  to  the  simple  use  of 
electricity  as  power  to  turn  the  mill  wheels,  the 
so-called  electro-chemical  industries  are  grow- 
ing in  number  every  day  —  industries  in  which 
electricity  is  used  for  its  chemical  properties  — 
and  these  give  rise  to  remarkable  changes  in 
our  internal  economy.  It  will  be  worth  our 
while  to  study  some  of  these  industries,  and  to 
study  also  the  strategy  of  location  which  will 
direct  the  development  of  cities  through  the 
new  power. 

The  waterpowers  of  the  country  are  more 
or  less  grouped  in  certain  localities,  so  that  it 
is  certain  that  in  those  localities  industrial 
development  will  be  centered  —  and  this  center- 
ing is  already  well  advanced.  New  England 
is  a  region  by  itself;  the  Adirondack  and  Cats- 
kill  region  of  New  York  another  in  which 
waterpower  is  abundant.  From  Virginia  south 
into  Georgia  and  around  into  Alabama  extends 
the  so-called  "Fall  Line"  of  the  Southern 
Appalachians,  the  sudden  break  at  which  the 
foothills  give  way  to  the  seaboard  plain. 

121 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

Wherever  rivers  cross  this  fall  line  are  large 
waterpowers,  and  higher  up  on  the  head- 
waters of  the  same  streams  are  other 
powers. 

On  the  Mississippi  system  there  are  great 
groups,  some  of  them  already  to  develop, 
others  to  follow  more  slowly.  The  Tennessee 
offers  in  midlength  Muscle  Shoals  with  an 
ultimate  development  of  500,000  horsepower, 
and  on  the  tributaries  above  Muscle  Shoals 
certainly  no  less  amount.  The  Ohio,  now  being 
improved  with  movable  dams,  will  in  a  genera- 
tion give  place  to  reservoirs  and  fixed  dams  and 
generate  between  Pittsburg  and  Cairo  prob- 
ably 2,000,000  horsepower.  The  upper  Missis- 
sippi presents  two  groups;  one  at  headwaters 
including  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony  offers  about 
200,000  horsepower,  and  the  other  in  the  middle 
river  includes  the  Rock  Island  rapids,  the  Des 
Moines  rapids  at  Keokuk,  and  three  dams 
lower  down  near  St.  Louis  in  connection  with 
the  Deep  Waterway,  which  will  have  altogether 
a  power  of  about  500,000  horse,  centering  at 

122 


NATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

St.  Louis  but  available  for  other  cities  along 
the  way. 

The  Missouri  offers  large  development  also, 
but  the  extent  of  it  in  the  lower  reaches  cannot 
now  be  judged.  But  in  Montana  this  river 
has  the  possibility  of  very  great  development 
part  of  which  is  already  undertaken,  and  should 
in  the  end  produce  500,000  horsepower.  The 
White,  the  Arkansas,  the  Washita,  all  will  pro- 
duce power,  and  the  Illinois  route  from  Chicago 
will  develop  altogether  150,000  horsepower  for 
use  near  Chicago. 

The  western  powers  group  themselves  chiefly 
in  Colorado,  in  Washington  and  Oregon,  and 
in  Central  California.  Washington  and  Ore- 
gon have  several  groups.  One  of  these  in 
Washington,  Idaho  and  western  Montana  con- 
sists of  the  powers  of  the  headwaters  of  the 
Columbia,  including  the  Pend  d'Oreille  and 
Flathead,  Clark's  Fork  and  the  Spokane  river, 
all  this  power  centering  in  the  Inland  Empire 
region  of  which  Spokane  is  the  natural  trading 
and  manufacturing  center.  The  falls  of  the 

123 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

upper  Columbia  itself  as  far  down  as  Priest's 
Rapids  naturally  fall  in  this  group,  which  has 
in  Oregon  and  Southern  Idaho  its  correspond- 
ing district  in  the  famous  Twin  Falls  and  the 
various  swiftwaters  of  Snake  and  Salmon 
rivers  and  the  falls  of  John  Day  and  Des 
Chutes  rivers.  On  the  west  coast  the  tremen- 
dous rainfall  and  sudden  declivity  of  the  Cas- 
cades and  the  Olympics,  reaching  the  sea  from 
remarkable  elevations  in  but  a  few  miles,  pro- 
duces a  steady  and  large  power  from  even  the 
smallest  streams,  and  there  results  a  power 
region  of  which  Seattle  in  Washington  is  a 
natural  center,  and  Portland  in  Oregon.  In 
between  these  two  the  greatest  power  river  of 
the  Pacific  slope,  the  Columbia,  offers  oppor- 
tunity for  development  in  connection  with  both 
irrigation  and  manufacturing  that  will  support 
an  enormous  population  in  the  picturesque  val- 
ley of  that  river.  San  Francisco  is  the  metrop- 
olis of  an  extensive  and  magnificent  power 
system,  embracing  torrents  which  plunge  down 
thousands  of  feet  from  the  Sierras,  and  the 

124 


NATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

development  of  irrigation  and  of  municipal  sup- 
ply go  hand  in  hand  with  this  creation  of  power 
to  increase  the  importance  and  wealth  of  the 
chief  Pacific  port. 

Although  there  are  individual  powers  in 
other  regions  of  large  importance,  like  that  at 
Rainy  River,  and  at  the  Long  Sault  of  the  St. 
Lawrence,  it  is  in  these  regions  where  the  great 
groups  of  powers  can  be  concentrated  that  the 
manufacturing  centers  of  densest  population 
and  of  the  greatest  economic  importance  must 
be  centered. 

In  all  of  these  districts  the  tendency  is  to  link 
up  and  combine  the  big  power  developing  cor- 
porations into  a  single  concern,  or  at  least  into 
a  working  inter-relation.  By  this  means  the 
combined  load  is  carried  on  the  whole  system, 
surplus  plants  can  be  temporarily  shut  down, 
and  the  various  peak  loads  resulting  from  a 
wide  variety  of  enterprises  can  be  distributed 
over  a  large  number  of  plants.  More  than  this 
the  association  under  one  control  of  all  the 
plants  upon  a  single  watershed  enables  that 

125 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

company  to  develop  to  the  highest  extent  the 
storage  on  the  watershed  without  the  necessity 
of  involving  any  other  enterprise. 

In  Colorado  the  chief  power  development  is 
controlled  by  the  Central  Colorado  Power  com- 
pany, a  big  corporation  which  has  extensive 
plants  at  Glenwood  and  in  Gore  Canon,  ca- 
pable of  developing  about  100,000  horsepower. 
In  Montana  the  powers  of  the  Missouri  river 
are  by  a  gradual  consolidation  all  brought  under 
a  single  head,  the  United  Missouri  River  Power 
Company,  and  this,  in  turn,  is  closely  associated 
with  other,  distant  power  groups.  But  for  an 
illustration  of  the  completeness  of  control  such 
a  system  acquires  and  the  rapidity  with  which 
it  grows  we  may  cite  the  company  which  con- 
trols the  power  developments  about  San  Fran- 
cisco, the  Pacific  Gas  and  Electric  Company. 
This  is  a  company  formed  by  the  consolidation, 
beginning  in  1905,  of  a  large  number  of  local 
electric  anil  gas  companies.  In  four  years  it 
had  outstanding  securities  of  a  total  of  about 
$85,000,000.  It  controlled  practically  all  the 

126 


NATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

central  station  electric  business  of  Central  Cali- 
fornia including  eight  of  the  ten  principal  cities 
of  the  state.  It  had  eleven  hydro-electric 
stations  in  the  Sierras,  delivering  power  hun- 
dreds of  miles  to  San  Francisco,  and  generating 
about  100,000  horsepower.  It  had  in  addition 
an  equal  amount  of  waterpower  in  reserve,  or 
a  total  of  200,000,  the  equivalent  of  3,000,000 
tons  of  coal  a  year,  economically  burned.  This 
one  corporation  is  the  sole  source  of  electric 
power  in  a  region  225  by  125  miles  —  a  total  of 
31,489  square  miles  and  containing  sixty  per 
cent  of  the  people  of  California.  By  its  unit 
control  of  the  watersheds  it  is  able  to  reservoir 
extensively  and  owns  thirty-one  reservoirs  with 
a  total  storage  of  3,500,000,000  cubic  feet  — 
about  as  much  as  the  total  storage  of  the  Wis- 
consin river.  Fifteen  hundred  miles  of  high 
tension  wire  carry  the  current  from  the  stations 
to  the  cities,  and  all  the  stations  are  so  linked 
up  that  an  accident  or  an  overload  at  one  is 
compensated  by  the  simple  throwing  of  a  few 
switches  at  the  controlling  station. 

127 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

Such  a  single  system,  developing  to  the  high- 
est degree  the  waterpowers  of  a  region  and 
placing  their  power  at  the  disposal  of  the  public 
is  of  the  greatest  economic  importance.  The 
development  and  sale  of  power  is  one  of  those 
affairs  in  which  competition  is  not  needed  but 
in  which  co-operation  brings  the  highest  suc- 
cess. This  consolidation  and  co-operation,  how- 
ever, should  be  brought  about  either  directly 
through  public  ownership  and  control,  or 
through  strict  laws  which  provide  for  a  public 
share  in  the  enterprise,  and  a  public  regulation 
of  the  prices  charged  for  power. 

It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  value  to 
San  Francisco  and  to  Spokane  or  to  any  other 
central  city  of  a  big  water  system,  of  such 
abundant  waterpower  close  at  hand.  It  means 
the  development  of  industry  free  from  smoke 
and  cinders,  the  possibility  of  building  and 
maintaining  handsome  public  structures,  and 
private  commercial  edifices  of  great  beauty 
without  subjecting  them  to  the  defacement  of 
coal  smoke  and  soot.  It  means  the  elimination 

128 


NATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

of  a  great  burden  of  cheap  freight  from  the 
railroads  and  greater  opportunity  for  the  dis- 
tribution of  high  class  manufactures.  And  in 
the  case  of  the  railways  themselves  it  means  the 
doing  away  with  steam  power  and  the  complete 
substitution  of  electric  power. 

This  last  step  the  railways  will  take  before 
the  world  is  aware  of  it.  They  will  transfer 
their  energies  from  the  mining  of  black  coal  to 
the  use  of  white  coal.  In  the  east  the  railroad 
which  runs  from  New  York  into  Connecticut 
operates  all  its  trains  by  electricity  for  many 
miles.  The  New  York  Central  is  electrifying 
its  system  and  other  roads  are  preparing  to 
follow  suit.  The  new  line  of  the  Chicago.  Mil- 
waukee and  St.  Paul  railway  across  the  con- 
tinent is  to  be  electrified  through  the  mountains 
by  the  development  of  waterpower  —  the  har- 
nessing of  the  rivers  of  the  Bitter  Root  range. 
The  great  tunnel  of  the  Cascades  on  the  Great 
Northern  railway  has  been  electrified.  In  this 
long  tunnel  the  smoke  formerly  hung  so  heav- 
ily that  only  one  train  an  hour  could  be  passed 
9  129 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

through.  The  railway  company  harnessed  a 
river  which  plunges  along  by  the  track,  and  with 
this  power  equipped  the  tunnel  with  electric 
engines.  Now  the  trains  pass  through  in  rapid 
succession  in  clear  air,  the  passengers  and 
crews  no  longer  suffer,  and  the  danger  of  a 
horrible  catastrophe  from  the  suffocation  of  the 
passengers  on  a  broken-down  train  —  always 
a  possibility  under  the  old  system  —  is  elim- 
inated. 

Electrification,  by  waterpower  and  by  mine 
central  station,  will  sweep  over  the  nation  rap- 
idly when  it  has  acquired  a  little  more  momen- 
tum and  the  further  electrification  of  industry 
and  the  extension  of  new  industries  will  go 
with  it. 

What  are  these  industries  and  especially  the 
new  industries  which  will  depend  upon  power  ? 
Many  of  them  are  of  vital  interest  to  the  nation, 
and  not  least  of  these  is  the  manufacture  of 
nitrates  for  our  soil.  The  renewal  of  our  soil, 
its  fertility,  its  ability  to  support  life,  depends 
primarily  upon  the  conservation  of  water; 

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NATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

partly  as  we  shall  see  by  the  saving  of  sewage 
to  purify  the  rivers;  but  more  directly  by  the 
use  of  electric  power  in  nitrate  manufacture. 

The  three  mineral  elements  which  are  neces- 
sary for  plant  growth,  in  any  soil,  are  nitrogen, 
phosphorus,  and  potassium.  Potassium  is  a 
common  product,  and  when  the  present  abun- 
dant mines  are  exhausted  there  are  other 
ample  supplies  to  be  tapped.  Phosphorus  is  a 
rarer  substance  but  is  only  used  in  small  quan- 
tities. But  nitrogen  is  rapidly  exhausted  from 
the  soil  by  nearly  all  crops,  and  is  in  constant 
demand  for  renewal.  It  is  the  largest  element 
in  most  commercial  fertilizers. 

The  supply  of  nitrogen  comes  from  packing 
house  waste,  from  cotton  seed,  and  other  sim- 
ilar vegetable  materials,  a  comparatively  lim- 
ited supply,  and,  the  largest  amount,  from  the 
famous  Chilean  nitrate  mines.  These  deposits 
of  nitrate  in  the  desert  of  Chile  are  the  largest 
in  the  world,  but  they  are.  being  rapidly  ex- 
hausted, and  when  they  are  gone,  unless  some 
other  supply  existed,  the  world  would  soon 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

starve  to  death.  There  is,  however,  a  great, 
inexhaustible  reservoir  of  nitrogen  —  the  air 
we  breathe.  Seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  air 
is  pure  nitrogen. 

This  aerial  nitrogen,  however,  is  useless  as 
a  supply  for  plants,  except  for  such  species  as 
clover  and  alfalfa  —  legumes  —  which,  owing 
to  the  presence  of  certain  bacteria  in  them,  are 
able  to  "  fix  "  air  nitrogen  and  store  it  in  their 
roots.  For  the  world's  supply  it  is  necessary 
to  fix  this  nitrogen  into  some  solid  form  which 
can  be  distributed  on  the  soil  and  absorbed 
from  it  by  all  manner  of  vegetable  life.  Elec- 
tricity offers  the  only  solution  yet  known  of 
this  problem. 

There  are  two  ways  of  obtaining  nitrogen 
by  electricity.  One  of  these  is  direct  anS  costly, 
the  other  indirect  and  cheap.  The  direct 
method  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  by  arti- 
ficial lightning.  Everyone  has  noticed  after 
a  heavy  thunder  storm  an  acrid  taste  in  the 
air.  That  is  due  to  the  presence  of  nitric  acid, 
the  nitrogen  having  been  fixed  or  combined 

132 


UNIVt.tt 
OF 


;  DEVELOPMENT 

by  the  lightning  with  hydrogen-  and  oxygen  to 
form  nitric  acid.  Exactly  the  same  process  is 
carried  on  to-day  in  Norway  and  in  Bavaria. 
In  big  towers  prepared  for  the  purpose  beside 
powerful  waterfalls  electrically  harnessed, 
sparks  like  lightning  are  continuously  dis- 
charged; and  the  air  through  which  they  leap 
is  turned  into  nitric  acid.  This  acid  is  caught 
and  by  a  chemical  process  is  turned  into  a  dry 
nitrate  which  can  be  distributed  over  the  soil. 
This  process  requires  so  much  power  that  only 
where  electricity  is  cheap  can  it  be  done.  It 
works  well  in  Norway,  where  the  waterfalls 
are  very  high  and  current  can  be  cleveloped  for 
about  five  dollars  a  horsepower. 

The  other  process  which  is  used  now  arid 
probably  will  be  extensively  used  in  America 
is  less  direct.  Everyone  is  familiar  with  the 
fact,  discovered  some  years  ago,  that  air  can 
be  liquefied.  There  are  several  factories  in 
operation  now  devoted  to  the  manufacture  of 
liquid  air  for  commercial  purposes  —  turning 
out  a  steel  blue  liquid  intensely  cold,  which  will 

133 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

freeze  anything  in  the  world  and  which  pro- 
duces remarkable  chemical  and  mechanical 
results. 

Just  as  alcohol  and  water  can  be  separated 
in  a  still,  the  alcohol  passing  off  at  a  low  tem- 
perature anid  the  water  at  a  higher,  so  the 
nitrogen  and  oxygen  in  this  liquid  air  can  be 
separated  by  distillation.  By  careful  regula- 
tion of  the  temperature  the  pure  nitrogen  evap- 
orates, leaving  liquid  oxygen.  This  pure  nitro- 
gen gas  is  drawn  off  as  the  basis  of  a  nitrate 
fertilizer. 

Many  of  the  largest  electric  industries  de- 
pend for  their  existence  upon  the  electric  fur- 
nace —  a  retort  through  which  a  heavy,  low 
tension  current  is  sent,  producing  an  effect  like 
an  arc  light  within  the  retort,  the  current  pass- 
ing with  heavy  resistance  through  the  particles 
of  the  contained  substance,  and  heating  it  to  a 
very  high  degree.  Iron  can  be  smelted  and 
steel  made  this  way.  Carborundum  is  made 
this  way  and  aluminum  is  removed  from  its 
ores  and  turned  into  the  light  and  useful  sub- 

134 


NATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

stance  employed  in  arts,  by  the  same  process. 
A  more  common  industry  is  the  manufacture  of 
calcium  carbide,  from  which  acetylene  is  made. 
Lime  and  coke  in  the  proper  proportions  are 
placed  in  a  retort,  the  current  is  turned  into 
them  melting  and  fusing  them,  and  the  calcium 
carbide  —  the  chemical  union  of  the  two  — 
results. 

If,  into  this  retort  containing  lime  and  coke, 
or  containing  calcium  carbide  previously  man- 
ufactured, the  pure  nitrogen  gas  from  the 
liquid  air  is  introduced  under  pressure,  it  is 
immediately  absorbed  in  large  quantities  by  the 
hot  carbide.  When  the  furnace  is  cooled  and 
opened  there  is  found  in  it  not  the  white  lumps 
of  calcium  .carbide  which  would  otherwise  be 
there,  but  a  slaty  gray  powder,  calcium  cyan- 
amid  —  "  lime  nitrogen  "  as  it  is  commercially 
known  —  a  combination  of  nitrogen,  lime  and 
carbon. 

Spread  upon  the  fields  this  substance  quickly 
dissolves;  the  lime  sweetens  the  soil,  and  the 
nitrogen  is  absorbed  into  it  and  from  it  is 

135 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF  WATER 

drawn  into  the  roots  and  so  into  the  stems  and 
leaves  of  plants. 

This  is  the  hope,  an3  as  far  as  we  know 
now,  the  sole  hope  of  the  fields  and  farms  of 
America.  Only  by  this  process  can  the  nitro- 
gen in  our  soils  be  renewed  and  enriched.  And 
only  by  electric  power  can  we  obtain  our  supply. 
So  the  cheapening  and  steadying  of  water- 
power,  the  conservation  of  every  part  of  our 
running  streams,  quickly  results  in  the  con- 
servation of  our  soil,  the  renewal  of  its  fertility, 
and  the  making  abundant  and  cheap  of  the 
things  we  must  have  for  food. 

Cyanamid  of  lime,  the  nitrogen  of  the  air 
fixed  with  coke  and  lime,  has  many  other  uses 
beside  that  of  fertilizing  our  soil.  It  is  a  cheap 
source  of  ammonia  of  which  we  need  large 
quantities  —  it  has  only  to  be  mixed  with  water 
to  produce  it.  It  is  a  necessary  element  of  high 
explosives;  and  in  addition  it  is  the  cheap  and 
direct  route  to  produce  the  cyanides  which  are 
used  in  extracting  gold  and  other  metals  from 
refractory  ores. 

136 


NATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

The  other  chemical  uses  of  the  electric  cur- 
rent made  possible  by  the  cheapness  of  hydro- 
electric power  are  almost  without  number,  and 
we  cannot  enumerate  them  here.  The  mechan- 
ical uses  are  as  important.  In  Minneapolis, 
where  sixteen  million  barrels  of  flour  are 
ground  each  year,  it  is  estimated  that  it  costs 
one  cent  to  grind  a  barrel  of  flour  with  water- 
power,  and  five  cents  to  grind  a  barrel  by  steam 
power.  Paper  mills  in  fabulous  numbers  are 
run  either  by  waterpower  directly,  or  by  hydro- 
electric power  from  some  distant  station. 
Bleaching  powder  is  made,  copper  is  extracted 
from  its  ore  and  scores  of  other  important  in- 
dustries carried  on  by  these  falling  waters.  All 
along  the  "  fall  line  "  of  the  Southern  Appa- 
lachians cotton  mills  draw  their  power  from 
their  streams,  and  in  every  city  which  has  this 
cheap  power  the  busy  machines  in  the  work- 
shops are  turned  by  it.  Inter-urban  railways, 
spreading  rapidly  through  the  country,  fre- 
quently have  their  base  of  power  in  a  concrete 
dam,  and  offer  their  services  in  a  new  field, 

137 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

that  of  collecting  and  distributing  freights  to 
be  carried  on  the  river  which  furnishes  the 
power. 

One  of  the  greatest  necessities  in  our  na- 
tional growth  is  the  extension  of  our  foreign 
trade.  In  this  we  meet  German  competition 
most  strongly.  If  all  our  raw  materials  and 
all  our  factories  were  on  the  seaboard  the 
transportation  cost,  which  is  our  chief  handi- 
cap, would  be  eliminated.  But  as  it  is,  we  must 
carry  either  the  coal  and  the  raw  materials,  or 
else  the  finished  product  to  the  seaboard  to 
place  them  upon  ships,  and  this  rail  haul,  for 
which  high  rates  are  charged,  is  a  great  handi- 
cap upon  us. 

Most  of  the  raw  materials  for  manufacture 
are  found  adjacent  to  the  rivers  —  lumber, 
lime,  iron,  cotton,  wool,  corn  and  wheat,  and 
all  the  other  products  so  used  are  found  close 
to  water.  In  the  development  of  waterpower 
these  streams  are  made  safely  navigable,  and 
therefore  they  offer  an  outlet  to  the  sea  much 
cheaper  than  rail  to  products  made  by  the  elec- 

138 


NATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

trie  power  out  of  the  raw  materials.  Therefore 
we  may  expect  to  see  our  export  trade  advance 
rapidly  as  the  Conservation  movement  ad- 
vances. And  we  may  expect  to  see  develop  new- 
types  of  smokeless  cities,  founded  upon  public 
wrork,  upon  public  income  instead  of  public  tax- 
ation, at  the  principal  falls.  In  the  middle 
reach  of  the  Tennessee,  near  the  Muscle  Shoals 
there  should  be  a  continuous  manufacturing 
city  for  forty  miles  along  the  river  with  a  free, 
deep  channel  to  New  Orleans.  On  the  Ohio 
there  will  be  a  score  of  such  cities.  On  the 
Mississippi  the  nucleus  at  St.  Louis  will  extend 
far  up  and  down  the  stream,  and  the  upper 
Illinois  Valley  will  hold  another  continuous  city. 

The  great  powers  of  the  Columbia  will  pro- 
vide for  our  Oriental  trade  a  similar  situation, 
and  the  current  from  the  Sierras  will  establish 
on  San  Francisco  Bay  a  like  condition. 

A  remarkable  instance  of  the  new  cities  that 
are  made  possible  by  the  existence  of  the  elec- 
tric power  from  running  water  is  offered  by  the 
new  activity  at  the  falls  of  Rainy  Lake  River 

139 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

at  Kouchiching,  Minnesota.  All  northern  Min- 
nesota is  forest  covered,  and  much  of  it  is  mus- 
keg and  swamp,  which  is  being  rapidly  drained 
and  turned  into  a  rich  wheat  country.  It  is, 
however,  very  sparsely  settled.  Coal  can  only 
be  brought  there  at  a  very  heavy  expense  for 
freight,  and  it  would  at  a  glance  appear  that 
this  could  never  be  a  manufacturing  center. 

The  Rainy  Lake,  however,  reservoired  by  in- 
numerable other  lakes  along  the  Canadian  bor- 
der, pours  out  to  its  river  over  a  fall  nearly 
forty  feet  high  a  continuous  flow  which  scarcely 
varies  at  all  from  low  water  to  high  water  and 
is  capable  at  all  stages  of  developing  35,000 
electric  horsepower.  This  is  now  being  har- 
nessed—  and  lo!  a  transformation! 

Canadian  wheat,  coming  $own  from  the 
northwest  for  export,  must  go  through  Duluth 
or  through  Thunder  Bay.  The  shortest  route 
to  either  place,  and  the  best  grades,  lie  along 
Rainy  Lake  River,  past  the  falls  of  Kouchi- 
ching. Minnesota  wheat  from  the  rich  and  fer- 
tile newly  drained  swamp  lands  seeks  the  same 

140 


NATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

route.  The  hills  and  mountains  around  the  lake 
are  magnificently  covered  with  paper  wood. 
So  here  by  a  fairy  wand  the  power  creates  the 
city.  International  Falls,  developed  to  mill 
flour  in  transit  and  to  manufacture  paper  from 
wood  on  either  side  of  the  International  Boun- 
dary—  for  the  river  has  Canada  on  one  side 
and  United  States  on  the  other  —  becomes 
at  once  the  metropolis  of  the  new  region. 
Drawing  from  both  countries,  manufacturing 
cheaply,  shipping  by  rail  to  Port  Arthur,  Du- 
luth  or  Minneapolis,  with  easy  water  connec- 
tion back  into  Canada  through  its  river,  and 
with  water  connection  to  the  Mississippi  system 
certain  to  come,  this  wilderness  waterfall  makes 
possible  a  handsome,  smokeless  and  prosperous 
city  which  is  nov  rapidly  developing. 

Not  only  in  factory  and  city,  but  on  the  farm 
and  in  the  home  waterpower  is  doing  the 
familiar  common  things.  Plows  are  drawn, 
wagons  'driven,  hay  stacked,  grain  reaped  and 
threshed,  trees  felled  and  cleared  away,  all  by 
the  power  of  the  falling  water.  The  house  and 

141 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

barn  are  lighted  with  the  electric  glow,  the 
cows  milked  by  an  electric  driven  machine,  the 
farmer's  meals  cooked  in  an  electric  oven,  the 
house  warmed,  the  water  supply  pumped  and 
heated,  the  butter  churned,  —  all  by  the  handy 
electric  current  from  a  nearby  brook,  or  stepped 
down  from  the  slender  high-tension  wire  which 
passes  by  the  farm  from  a  waterfall  in  the  open 
country  to  the  city  fifty  miles  away. 

There  are  farms  in  the  east  and  farms  as  far 
west  as  Idaho,  where  everything  which  can  be 
done  by  mechanical  power  is  done  by  electricity, 
and  methods  have  been  devised  to  make  this 
easy  and  simple.  A  brook  ten  feet  across  and 
six  inches  deep,  falling  eight  to  ten  feet  in 
crossing  the  farm,  set  up  with  a  cheap,  home- 
made concrete  dam,  forced  to  run  out  at  the 
bottom  through  a  simple  turbine,  that  needs  to 
be  tended  once  a  week  —  and  geared  to  a  simple 
generator  set  on  the  crest  of  the  dam  —  that  is 
the  farmer's  equipment.  Once  a  day  he  strolls 
down  to  look  it  over  —  a  half  hour's  task.  The 
rest  of  the  time  day  and  night  the  wheel  spins 

142 


NATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

on,  sending  its  current  now  through  the  lights, 
now  through  a  motor,  now  into  the  kitchen 
stove  and  again  into  the  bathroom  radiator  — 
and,  when  all  these  are  idle,  storing  it  up  for 
future  use  in  the  storage  battery  in  the  corner 
of  the  barn. 

That  is  an  inkling  of  what  we  are  coming  to 

—  of  the  day  when  every  brook  and  river  is 
harnessed,  when  the  ponds  at  headwaters  are 
controlled    by   clams,    when    the    floods    have 
ended  and  the  low  water  has  been  done  away 
with,  when  the  rivers  have  grassy  banks  to  the 
water's  edge  and  the  erosion  of  soil  has  stopped 

—  and  the  hard  work  of  city  and  country,  of 
farm  and  village  home,  is  done  by;  this  wise 
servant,  tamed  and  controlled. 


CHAPTER   VII 

SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

Some  years  ago  the  state  of  Louisiana  sold 
to  an  enterprising  citizen  one  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  acres  of  land  for  a  cent  an  acre.  The 
whole  tract  netted  the  state  $1,400.  It  was  sold 
as  swamp  land,  and  on  that  account  was  sup- 
posed to  be  useless  unless  it  were  drained.  The 
buyer  held  the  land  for  several  years,  and  then 
put  it  on  the  market  to  sell  in  blocks  of  ten  acres 
at  $100  an  acre,  reserving  every  alternate  ten 
acre  tract  for  sale  later  at  a  higher  price. 

This  land  sold  at  the  high  price  was  still  un- 
drained,  as  it  was  the  higher  parts  of  the  big 
tract  he  had  bought  but  every  ten  acres  was 
subject  to  a  ten  per  cent  deduction  for  ditches. 
In  other  words,  it  was  still  to  pay  for  its  own 
drainage.  The  whole  tract  is  easily  worth  what 
the  enterprising  citizen  is  trying  to  sell  it  for, 

144 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

for  it  is  the  finest  alluvial  silt  brought  down  by 
the  Mississippi,  stolen  from  farms  far  up  the 
river.  It  will  grow  oranges,  figs  or  truck,  and 
in  vegetables  will  grow  easily  three  crops  a 
year. 

The  anecdote  is  interesting  because  it  illus- 
trates among  other  things  two  points  clearly: 
one,  the  sudden  increase  in  value  of  land  which 
has  been  transferred  from  the  public  to  private 
hands ;  and,  second,  the  enormous  productivity 
and  money  value  of  our  swamp  lands.  All  over 
the  United  States  there  are  such  lands  as  this, 
covered  with  water  part  or  all  of  the  year,  but 
having  a  rich  and  fertile  soil  to  bear  large  crops 
when  they  are  drained. 

Altogether  these  swamps  have  an  area  equal 
to  the  whole  of  Indiana,  Ohio  and  Illinois, 
75,000,000  acres  of  the  finest  land  in  America, 
a  tract  which  we  could  not  duplicate  if  we 
searched  the  continent  and  endeavored  to  buy 
from  our  neighbors  north  and  south  the  most 
fertile  part  of  their  domain.  The  drainage  of 
this  land  is  a  part  of  the  Conservation  of 
10  145 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

Water.  It  makes  available  a  large  supply 
which  is  needed  in  our  rivers,  it  renders  the 
idle  land  productive,  and  it  does  away  with  the 
swamp  fevers  which  persist  in  undrained 
localities. 

Water  out  of  place  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
just  as  bad  as  no  water  at  all.  Rainfall  that 
runs  quickly  from  a  well-sloped  watershed 
into  ponds  and  lakes  which  act  as  reservoirs 
remains  thenceforth  at  the  control  of  man.  to 
be  released  from  sluice  gates  as  it  is  needed 
in  the  rivers;  and  water  which  falls  upon  a 
dry  land  forest  seeps  through  the  soil  and 
follows  the  roots,  to  emerge  at  length  in  a 
steady  discharge  from  the  little  brooks  and  so 
maintain  a  steady  flow  through  dry  times. 
But  water  which  falls  in  an  undrained  place, 
whether  forest  or  meadow,  stands  stagnant, 
destroying  useful  vegetation,  breeding  pes- 
tiferous mosquitoes  and  other  insects,  and  hold- 
ing useless  and  out  of  cultivation  all  the  acres 
on  which  it  lies.  The  water  which  is  held  up 
year  after  year  on  this  land,  to  evaporate 

146 


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§1.8 

o  g,  fe 

as  s 

00     13     <J 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

slowly  in  the  dry  season,  is  needed  badly  for 
river  improvement,  for  both  power  and  navi- 
gation. Drained  into  reservoirs  and  carried 
through  proper  channels,  it  forms  an  essen- 
tial factor  in  deepening  and  developing  our 
inland  waterways.  And  the  land  which  by 
this  drainage  would  be  opened  sto  cultivation 
and  settlement  would  add  not  less  than 
$10,000,000,000  to  the  annual  possible  crop 
value  of  the  nation. 

The  swamp  lands  are  distributed  through 
the  nation  about  as  follows : 

Florida 20,000,000  acres 

Louisiana 9,500,000 

Mississippi 6,000,000 

Michigan 5,000,000 

Arkansas •.„••  6,000,000 

Minnesota 4,000,000 

Wisconsin 3,000,000 

Illinois 2,500,000 

Maine 2,500,000 

North  Carolina  .    .    .  2,500,000 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

Texas    .  ,.,  ....  ,.,      2,500,000 

Missouri :.;       3,500,000 

South  Carolina    .    .  ...      2,000,000 

Alabama,  New  York,  Virginia  and  Cali- 
fornia have  over  1,000,000  each  and  nearly 
every  state  has  some  amount.  The  plan  to 
drain  these  swamps,  at  an  expense  of  about 
two  dollars  an  acre,  means  the  addition  to  the 
arable  land  of  the  United  States  of  that  much 
territory  as  surely  as  though  it  were  gouged 
out  of  Canada  or  Mexico,  or  were  pulled  up 
by  an  anchor  hook  from  the  lost  Atlantis. 

These  swamp  lands  are  of  widely  different 
characteristics,  having  but  one  thing  in  com- 
mon —  too  much  water.  Thus  Minnesota  and 
Louisiana,  at  the  head  and  at  the  foot  of  the 
Mississippi,  have  enormous  areas  subject  to 
occasional  or  continual  inundation,  but  from 
opposite  reasons.  Minnesota's  swamp  is  the 
headwater  plateau,  surrounded  by  a  rocky  rim 
and  filled  with  sluggish  streams  which  do  not 
properly  carry  off  the  water  which  falls  upon 

148 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

it.  The  drainage  problem  is  merely  to  create 
direct  channels  through  which  the  water  may 
run ;  Louisiana,  on  the  other  hand,  is  down  at 
the  sea  level  and  the  land  has  not  been  built  up 
high  enough  to  drain  itself.  It  needs  (liking, 
like  the  lands  of  Holland,  to  protect  it  from 
the  sea,  and  pumping  to  carry  off  the  drainage 
water. 

The  Everglades,  though  almost  at  sea  level, 
are  surrounded  by  a  rock  rim,  the  cutting  of 
which  will  drain  them.  The  seaboard  plain 
of  the  Carolinas  needs  nothing  but  the  cutting 
of  drainage  channels  through  an  impervious 
sandy  soil.  The  shore  lands  of  New  England, 
like  those  of  Louisiana,  need  to  have  the  sea 
shut  out  from  them ;  along  the  Mississippi  the 
problem  is  generally  that  of  diking  against 
floods  and  straightening  the  natural  drainage 
channels. 

We  will  take  up  these  engineering  features 
later,  as  well  as  the  present  and  future  value 
of  these  lands.  But  it  is  well  to  look  first  at 
the  history  of  some  of  the  largest  tracts. 

149 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

Until  1850  all  the  great  swamp  tracts,  ex- 
cept those  included  within  the  original  Thir- 
teen States  (the  Dismal  Swamp,  Okefenokee, 
the  eastern  Seaboard  Plain,  the  Jersey 
marshes,  and  the  tidal  lands  of  New  Eng- 
land), remained  in  the  national  estate.  In  the 
middle  forties  there  sprang  up  in  the  west  a 
great  movement  for  the  development,  by  levee- 
ing, of  the  navigable  channels  of  the  rivers. 
Conventions  were  held  in  Memphis,  St.  Louis 
and  Chicago,  and  liberal  demands  upon  an  un- 
willing Congress  forced  that  body  to  take 
some  action.  It  was  not  itself  willing  to 
undertake  levee  building  along  the  Missis- 
sippi ;  but  as  there  was  then  in  the  valley  some 
32,000  square  miles  of  fine  alluvial  land  be- 
longing to  the  nation,  subject  to  overflow  and 
generally  covered  with  standing  water  most 
of  the  year,  Congress  gave  this  land  to  the 
states,  to  be  used  or  sold  by  them  each  to  cre- 
ate a  fund  for  its  own  leveeing  and  drainage. 
It  named  eleven  states  in  this  bill,  including 
Minnesota  and  Florida. 

150 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

None  of  the  states  has  ever  fulfilled  the  obli- 
gation laid  upon  it  by  the  federal  government 
to  drain  the  swamps  out  of  a  fund  created 
by  their  sale.  Florida  gave  most  of  her 
20,000,000  acres  away  in  railway  grants  with 
no  return  to  the  state.  Arkansas  and  Louis- 
iana sold  most  of  theirs  at  prices  ranging  from 
one  cent  to  one  dollar  an  acre,  and  Missouri 
'did  little  better.  Minnesota  parted  with  the 
greater  part  of  hers  at  low  prices,  and  it  is 
only  recently  that  the  states  have  discovered 
that  what  they  have  left  can  be  better  devel- 
oped for  the  people's  interest  if  it  is  kept  in 
the  public  hands.  Undrained  swamp  is  worth 
but  a  song,  though  the  timber  on  some  of  it 
returns  a  fortune  to  those  who. buy  and  hold 
it.  But  the  'drained  lands  are  worth  some- 
times one  hundred  times  as  much  as  the  un- 
drained,  and  by  holding  and  draining  them, 
as  we  shall  see,  the  state  gains  a  tremendous 
resource  for  the  people  at  large. 

The  overflow  region  along  the  Mississippi 
below  Cairo  we  have  heretofore  considered  in 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

the  chapter  on  flood  protection,  because  of  the 
tremendous  work  done  there  to  shut  out  the 
Mississippi  by  levees. 

Near  Cape  Girardeau  in  southeast  Missouri 
the  Mississippi  breaks  through  the  last  out- 
spur  of  the  Ozark  Mountains  and  enters  an 
alluvial  valley  which  it  has  built  up  of  the  det- 
ritus borne  down  by  its  floods  and  stolen  from 
the  country  above.  The  richest  and  most 
fertile  elements  of  the  soil  eroded  from  three- 
fifths  of  North  America  have  in  unnumbered 
thousands  of  years  been  carried  down  here 
and  filled  into  an  old  estuary  until  we  have 
land  extending  all  the  way  out  to  the  jetties  of 
the  South  Pass,  where,  geologists  say,  there 
was  formerly  an  arm  of  the  sea  eight  hundred 
miles  long  and  about  forty  miles  wide. 

In  this  region  the  river  crosses  from  Cape 
Girardeau  to  Columbus,  Kentucky,  and  fol- 
lows the  eastern  bluffs  to  Memphis.  Then  it 
crosses  diagonally  to  Helena,  Arkansas,  on  the 
west  bluffs ;  and  then  back  to  the  east  at  Vicks- 
burg  and  down  as  far  as  Baton  Rouge,  the 

152 


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SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

last  of  the  high  ground.  Below  Cape  Girar- 
deau  on  the  west,  extending  to  Helena,  and 
lying  opposite  Memphis,  it  leaves  a  region  two 
hundred  and  forty  miles  by  forty,  containing 
nearly  8,000  square  miles  of  rich  alluvium, 
covered,  until  recently,  by  the  finest  hardwood 
forest  on  the  continent.  This  region  —  called, 
from  its  drainage  stream,  the  St.  Francis 
Swamp  —  is  the  first  of  the  overflow  swamps 
of  the  lower  Mississippi  and  lies  partly  in  Mis- 
souri and  partly  in  Arkansas. 

Beginning  at  Memphis  on  the  east  side  and 
extending  down  to  Vicksburg  is  an  almost 
exactly  similar  tract  of  about  the  same  size, 
known  from  its  drainage  stream  as  the  Yazoo 
Delta,  another  stretch  of  hard  wood  forest 
largely  cleared  and  producing  cotton  second 
in  staple  only  to  Sea  Island  and  in  yield  to 
nothing  in  the  world.  Below  Helena,  on  the 
west,  lies  the  White  River  basin,  giving  place 
to  the  Tensas,  named  also  from  its  river ;  and 
from  this  southward,  the  alluvial  overflow 
lands  widen  out  to  embrace  the  Washita  and 

153 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

Black  and  Red  rivers,  the  Atchafalaya,  the 
bayous  Teche  and  La  Fourche  on  the  one  side, 
and  Manchac  on  the  other  —  nearly  the  full 
width  of  Louisiana  —  to  merge  with  the  Gulf 
Coastal  Plain. 

The  St.  Francis  Swamp  will  serve  us  for  a 
typical  illustration  of  the  character,  the  prob- 
lems, and  the  treatment  of  this  alluvial  delta. 
Owing  to  the  character  of  all  such  river-bed 
deposits  this  land  is  higher  close  to  the  Mis- 
sissippi than  farther  back,  sloping  away  seven 
feet  in  the  first  mile  and  then  about  six  inches 
to  the  mile  to  the  back  river  against  the  bluffs 
into  which  it  drains.  Whatever  Mississippi 
river  water  comes  over  the  banks  at  high 
water  drains  naturally  this  way,  and  were  the 
drainage  streams  open  and  straight  it  would 
find  an  easy  course  down  to  Helena,  where  it 
comes  again  to  the  level  of  the  Mississippi  and 
flows  into  it.  Drainage  alone  is  not  a  difficult 
problem  here. 

The  water  supply,  however,  is  complicated 
because  the  St.  Francis  and  the  L'Anguille 

154 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

rivers  bring  down  from  the  Ozarks  a  tremen- 
dous flood  of  spring  water,  and  in  addition 
this  whole  swamp  has  a  rainfall  of  its  own 
aggregating  over  seventy  inches  a  year  — 
twice  the  amount  of  rain  that  falls  in  northern 
Illinois. 

An  entire  volume  could  be  written  about 
this  region  and  every  page  could  be  filled  with 
stories  of  adventure  concerning  it.  More 
than  a  hundred  years  ago,  while  the  Spaniards 
were  still  masters  at  New  Orleans,  Colonel 
George  Morgan  selected  New  Madrid  as  the 
best  of  the  western  country,  and  secured  a 
grant  to  12,000,000  acres  of  land,  which  he 
was  never  able  to  make  good.  New  Madrid 
was  even  then  the  center  of  a  wild  and  adven- 
turous group.  The  bends  of  the  river  near 
at  hand  were  the  haunts  of  river  pirates  who 
preyed  upon  the  keel  boats  of  the  early  days. 
In  1811  and  1812,  in  a  long  series  of  earth- 
quakes beginning  in  December  and  extending 
into  March  or  April,  this  whole  country  was 
subject  to  terrific  upheaval.  In  the  streets  of 

155 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

New  Madrid  gullies  opened  which  swallowed 
trees  and  houses.  Boiling  water  was  pro- 
jected in  geysers.  Stretches  of  forest  were  ' 
thrown  prostrate.  Islands  in  the  river  disap- 
peared and  new  ones  sprang  up.  Snags  and 
logs  buried  perhaps  for  centuries  came  to  the 
surface  of  the  river;  and  at  one  time  checked 
by  these  tremendous  upheavals,  the  river  was 
forced  to  flow  backward  on  itself.  Hundreds 
of  keel  boats  were  wrecked  and  many  men 
perished.  On  the  Tennessee  side  a  long  irreg- 
ular tract  of  land  settled  very  deep,  carrying 
its  trees  down  with  it,  to  form  the  region 
known  to-day  as  the  Scatters  of  Reelfoot  and 
Reel  foot  Lake. 

When  the  disturbance  was  over  most  of  the 
inhabitants  had  fled.  The  federal  government 
gave  them  new  dry  land  in  other  locali- 
ties in  exchange  for  their  abandoned  land  in 
the  St.  Francis.  It  was  asserted  then  that  a 
large  part  of  the  swamp  itself  had  settled  deep 
under  water,  but  it  is  probable  its  overflow 
was  caused  by  the  choking  of  its  natural  drain- 

156 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

age  channels.  At  any  rate,  there  then  existed 
and  continued  to  exist  a  very  considerable  tract 
of  land  continually  overflowed  and  grown  over 
with  cypress  and  other  huge  trees.  Three 
states  come  together  in  this  region  —  Ken- 
tucky and  Tennessee  on  the  one  hand,  Mis- 
souri on  the  other.  Arkansas  is  but  a  short 
distance  away.  A  little  part  of  Kentucky, 
detached  from  its  state  by  a  bend  of  the  river, 
cut  off  from  Tennessee  by  the  Scatters  of' 
Reelfoot,  and  facing,  on  the  Missouri  side,  the 
region  of  the  Bayou  St.  John  and  the  St.  Fran- 
cis, offered  endless  refuge  for  lawbreakers  of 
all  sorts.  This  was  the  home  of  the  famous 
Darnell-Watson  feud,  which  cost  the  lives  of 
forty  men  in  the  twenty  years  required  to  wipe 
out  the  contending  families.  This  was  the 
stronghold  of  many  a  famous  Missouri  gang 
of  train  robbers  and  counterfeiters,  and  of  the 
notorious  James  Bayou  gang  which  held  up 
the  "  Belle  of  Memphis  "  steamboat  on  a  cer- 
tain occasion  and  compelled  her  to  remain  for 
a  day  and  a  night  at  the  river  bank,  the  pas- 

157 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

sengers  prisoners  in  their  rooms,  while  the 
gang  drank  all  the  liquor  on  board  and  held  a 
dance  and  revel. 

Densely  covered  with  hard  woods,  over- 
flowed annually,  and  inhabited  by  gangs  of 
cutthroats,  nevertheless  these  lands  soon 
passed  out  of  state  control.  No  effort  was 
made  to  create  the  necessary  drainage  fund  by 
either  Missouri  or  Arkansas.  The  lands  were 
sold  for  a  song.  Fifty  cents  an  acre  was  no 
uncommon  price.  Even  as  late  as  1893,  when 
the  first  development  of  levee  building  began, 
large  areas  of  the  St.  Francis  bottom  lands 
could  still  be  bought  for  one  dollar  an  acre, 
and  the  timber  companies  were  securing  large 
amounts  at  very  low  prices. 

The  central  hard-wood  forest  was  at  that 
time  one  of  the  most  magnificent  resources  of 
the  Mississippi  Valley  States.  It  was  filled 
with  several  sorts  of  oaks,  immense  syca- 
mores, hickories,  gum  trees,  cottonwoods  and 
many  other  varieties.  Hickories  which  rose 
eighty  feet  from  the  ground  before  they 

158 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

branched ;  white  oaks,  which  would  cut  eighty 
foot  logs;  sycamores  ten  feet  in  diameter, 
breast  high  from  the  ground,  were  not  uncom- 
mon; and  the  cypress,  gum  and  cottonwood 
were  of  equally  magnificent  proportions. 
About  1890,  when  the  real  cutting  of  this  for- 
est began,  Memphis  became  the  greatest  hard- 
wood market  in  the  world. 

The  first  step  in  the  drainage  of  these 
swamp  lands  is  to  shut  the  Mississippi  out 
from  them.  This  is  done,  as  we  have  seen  in 
the  chapter  on  flood  protection,  by  the  erec- 
tion of  great  earthen  walls  or  levees,  all  along 
the  river  front,  sometimes  adjacent  to  the 
shore,  sometimes,  where  the  banks  are  caving, 
a  mile  to  ten  miles  back.  These  levees  are 
built  of  clear  earth,  containing  no  sticks  or 
stumps.  They  are  six  feet  thick  for  every 
foot  of  height,  with  an  additional  eight  feet 
representing  the  crown,  and  often  in  high 
levees  an  extra  reenforcement  on  the  land  side. 
They  are  bound  to  the  earth  by  a  "  muck 
ditch/'  and  after  settling  into  place  and  being 

159 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

trimmed  to  the  proper  size  and  evenness 
are  covered  with  grass  and  kept  clear  of 
weeds. 

Such  a  levee  is  but  a  makeshift  protection. 
Year  after  year  it  may  hold  the  flood  out;  and 
then,  in  March  or  April,  a  crawfish  or  musk- 
rat,  or  some  other  burrowing  animal  may 
make  a  tiny  hole  through  which  the  entire 
flood  will  follow,  sweeping  aside  the  broken 
earthwork  as  if  it  were  paper,  and  overflowing 
a  thousand  or  even  five  thousand  square  miles 
of  the  rich • farm  land.  When  that  happens 
the  inhabitants  take  to  the  trees,  houses  are 
filled  or  destroyed,  fields  are  often  ruined  by 
sand  deposits,  sickness,  suffering,  poverty 
result.  Nothing  but  the  complete  revetment 
of  the  river  banks  and  the  establishment  of 
concrete  cores  in  the  levees  will  shut  such 
floods  permanently  out  of  these  swamps  while 
floods  continue  to  exist;  and  only  the  com- 
plete reservoiring  of  the  Mississippi,  Missouri 
and  Ohio  will  make  the  floods  impossible. 

Having  the  river  shut  out,  it  is  next  neces- 
160 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

sary  to  provide  ample  drainage  for  the  rain- 
fall and  for  the  water  seeking  the  Mississippi, 
which  pours  down  out  of  the  hills.  This  is 
done  by  straightening  and  widening  and  deep- 
ening the  natural  drainage  channels,  the 
rivers,  and  by  dredging  as  many  straight, 
deep,  drainage  ditches  to  supplement  them  as 
is  possible.  Where  it  can  be  done  without  les- 
sening the  drainage  advantage  these  canals 
should  be  made  of  such  slope  and  capacity  as 
to  retain  water  in  the  summer,  and  so  to  be 
useful  for  navigation,  giving  the  swamp 
farmer  an  outlet  for  his  crops. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  drainage  work 
the  Little  River  district  in  southeastern  Mis- 
souri at  the  head  of  the  St.  Francis  has  already 
emerged  from  the  water,  and  has  proved  won- 
derfully productive.  Forty  acres  of  it  make 
a  sufficient  farm.  More  than  this,  the  old  mud 
roads,  impassable  most  of  the  year,  have  dis- 
appeared, and  hard  stone  roads,  well  drained 
and  dry,  have  taken  their  place;  thus  cheap- 
ening transportation  and  making  it  easier  for 

ii  161 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

the  farmer  to  market  his  crops  at  any  time  of 
the  year. 

Below  this  district  the  St.  Francis  is  still 
partly  undrained.  The  straightening  of  the 
St.  Francis  river  is  the  basis  upon  which  all 
plans  for  further  work  must  be  based,  and  that 
requires  co-operation  between  Congress  and  the 
State.  Some  day  this  must  be  done.  In  place 
of  the  present  tortuous,  shallow  channel  a 
straight  channel  must  be  dug,  or  at  least  the 
majority  of  the  big  bends  must  be  cut  off,  and 
the  water  allowed  to  flow  with  a  greater  slope 
to  the  Mississippi.  This  will  improve  naviga- 
tion in  this  region,  and  at  the  same  time  carry 
off  the  water  rapidly,  and  the  whole  Arkansas- 
St.  Francis  region  will  rise  above  the  flood. 
Lateral  canals  reaching  back  to  the  Mississippi 
levees  will  supplement  this  work. 

The  soil  of  the  St.  Francis  is  Mississippi 
river  alluvium.  It  is  capable  without  losing 
fertility,  if  properly  managed  and  conserved, 
of  producing  the  equivalent  of  a  bale  of  cotton 
to  every  acre  every  year.  Probably  it  can  do 

162 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

more.  But  if  we  take  this  bale  at  fifty  dollars 
as  an  average  estimate  of  its  worth,  the  St. 
Francis  when  fully  drained  and  in  cultivation 
(the  hardwood  having  been  cut  away)  will 
produce  each  year  thirty  thousand  dollars  per 
square  mile,  or  one  hundred  and  fifty  million 
dollars  in  crop  values  for  the  whole  swamp. 
Surely  a  profitable  addition  to  our  national 
income. 

The  levees  in  front  of  this  swamp  have  cost 
altogether  about  six  million  dollars  of  which 
the  federal  government  has  paid  two  million 
dollars  for  the  benefit  to  navigation.  The  ad- 
ditional cost  of  drainage  should  not  be  more 
than  ten  million  dollars. 

This  land  increases  rapidly  in  value  as  it 
is  drained.  Lancl  which  has  sold  for  one  dol- 
lar an  acre  with  the  timber  and  water  on  it,  has 
often  risen  to  twenty  dollars  an  acre  with  the 
water  partly  drained,  and  to  one  hundred  dol- 
lars an  acre  as  soon  as  the  timber  and  the 
water  were  both  finally  removed  —  the  tim- 
ber meanwhile  netting  fifteen  to  twenty  dol- 

163 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

lars  an  acre.  This  rapid  increase  in  value  has 
been  coincident  with  swift  development  of  the 
resources  of  the  swamp ;  and  no  department  of 
activity  has  been  more  illustrative  in  recent 
years  of  American  adaptability  and  American 
resourcefulness.  Thus  when  the  drainage  of 
the  St.  Francis  swamp  had  hardly  begun,  when 
the  levee  was  completed  for  not  more  than  forty 
or  fifty  miles  along  its  front,  a  group  of  three 
men  met  in  one  of  the  cities  on  the  hill  side  of 
the  swamp  and  planned  a  railway  which  would 
penetrate  the  rich  timber  and  make  it  possible 
to  market  the  lumber  and  ties.  The  problem 
before  them  was  to  do  the  work  without 
capital. 

One  of  them  had  the  change  from  $25  he 
had  borrowed  the  day  before,  one  of  them 
had  some  legal  knowledge,  the  third  was  a 
banker  who  could  command  $12,000  credit. 
On  this  they  began  business  with  some  wooden 
rails  and  old  equipment,  for  which  they  paid 
in  freight  on  ties,  to  be  delivered  after  the 
road  was  built.  They  traded  this  for  some 

164 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

scrap  iron  rails  and  an  old  locomotive  an3  car 
and  began  hauling  logs  from  the  edge  of  the 
swamp  to  the  nearest  sawmill.  The  swamp 
was  not  well  drained  then,  and  they  had  to 
follow  the  ridges,  which  they  did  under  the 
stimulus  of  bonuses  and  grants  from  persons 
anxious  to  sell  and  ship  their  timber.  In  ten 
years  they  built  seventy-five  miles,  to  a  foot- 
hold on  the  Mississippi,  and  established  a  profit- 
able railroad  which  facilitated  the  whole  devel- 
opment of  the  swamp. 

This  is  the  sort  of  profitable  Sevelopment 
which  comes  through  those  who  penetrate 
these  swamps  and  seize  upon  opportunity. 
Even  had  not  the  state  sold  its  lands  for  noth- 
ing, this  opportunity  would  have  come.  The 
development  of  the  St.  Francis,  but  slightly 
drained  as  it  is,  has  been  rapid  and  indicates 
how  eagerly  ancl  rapidly  settlers  will  flock  to 
such  regions  when  the  land  is  permanently 
dry. 

By  this  sort  of  swamp  reclamation  —  the 
cutting  of  out-fall  canals  with  ditching  ma- 

165 


THE    CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

chines  so  that  the  water  may  run  off  into  natu- 
ral channels  —  most  of  the  biggest  projects 
are  being  carried  on.  Thus  by  extending  the 
long,  straight  drainage  ditches  through  her 
muskeg  and  tamarack  swamps,  Minnesota  is 
turning  four  million  acres  of  profitless  swamp 
at  the  headwaters  of  the  Mississippi  into  well- 
clrained  farming  land,  returning  her  a  net 
income  for  her  capitalized  school  fund  of  ten 
dollars  an  acre  over  the  cost  of  drainage;  and 
incidentally  adding  this  immense  outflow  to 
the  reservoirs  of  the  Mississippi.  South  Caro- 
lina, and  particularly  the  region  about  Char- 
leston, is  cutting  ditches  through  the  sandy 
and  peaty  bogs  which  block  the  drainage, 
and  is  releasing  the  pent-up  waters  which 
for  a  century  made  that  region  a  deadly 
malarial  swamp.  For  the  health  of  the  city 
alone  this  would  be  a  remarkable  achieve- 
ment; but  it  is  being  followed  by  the  earn- 
ing of  rich  returns  from  the  drained  land 
and  the  establishment  of  hard  roads  through 
the  whole  section,  so  that  prosperity  as  well 

166 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

as    better    health    follow    this    conservation 
development. 

Louisiana  has  a  different  problem  and  a 
vast  one.  In  the  upper  parts  of  the  state 
levees  and  drainage  canals  like  those  in  the 
St.  Francis  are  sufficient;  but  the  seaboard 
of  the  state  is  a  tidal  marsh,  overflowed  when 
the  hurricanes  sweep  in  on  the  land,  produc- 
tive in  an  amazing  degree  when  the  water  is 
kept  off  from  it,  favored  above  all  the  rest  of 
America  by  a  mild  climate  and  abundant  rain. 
Some  day,  and  probably  she  will  begin  within 
a  decade,  Louisiana  must  treat  all  this  sea- 
board marsh  as  Hollan3  has  treated  hers, 
erecting  stanch  sea  dikes  along  her  shore,  to 
shut  out  the  hurricanes;  and  carrying  them 
far  up  the  estuaries  and  bayous.  Wide  canals 
serving  drainage  and  navigation  will  be  cut 
through  the  meadows,  with  pumps  for  drainage 
when  high  water  forces  the  closing  of  the 
outfall  gates.  New  Orleans  has  already  done 
this  work  within  its  limits.  Levees  surround 
it  on  every  side  and  the  water  is  lifted  over 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

them  by  electric  pumps.  As  a  result  the  ma- 
laria-breeding swamp  at  the  back  of  the  city, 
where  the  water  formerly  stood  from  one  to 
six  feet  deep,  has  been  dried  out  into  good 
building  lots  and  truck  gardens,  and  the  health 
of  the  city  materially  improved.  But  when 
the  state  undertakes  the  greater  problem  it 
must  face  the  fact  that  it  no  longer  owns  the 
lands  which  are  to  be  benefited,  but  has  parted 
with  them  for  a  song  with  no  material  benefit 
to  the  greater  part  of  its  citizens. 

How  much  the  swamp  lands  have  brought 
the  state  it  is  impossible  now  to  tell.  Swamp 
lands  along  river  and  coast  have  been  in  de- 
mand about  eight  years.  Such  lands  drained 
and  in  good  condition  are  worth  $100  to  $150 
an  acre.  The  state  sold  them  in  1902  for 
twelve  and  a  half  cents  an  acre  —  just  twelve 
and  a  half  times  as  much  as  they  had  asked  a 
few  years  earlier  —  and  in  1903  raised  the 
price  to  twenty-five  cents. 

Louisiana  has  parted  with  her  heritage  for 
a  song.  She  has  nothing  left  to  show  for  it. 

168 


SWAMP    DRAINAGE 

Let  us  look  over  her  situation  and  discover  if 
we  can  what  would  have  been  the  result  in 
Louisiana  of  maintaining  this  public  territory 
and  carrying  it  on  —  as  we  see  other  states 
carrying  it  on  —  as  a  public  property  for  the 
good  of  all;  let  us  apply,  that  is,  the  doctrine 
of  Conservation. 

Louisiana  had  in  her  original  gift  9,500,000 
acres  of  swamp  and  overflow  land.  This  was 
the  richest  land  in  America,  the  choicest  part  of 
the  sediment  of  the  upper  country  brought 
down  by  the  Mississippi,  the  Red  and  the 
Washita.  It  was  finely  divided,  the  very  light- 
est silt;  the  heavier  and  coarser  having  been 
dropped  higher  upstream.  In  her  mild  cli- 
mate such  land  produces  usually  three  crops 
of  truck  year  after  year  without  loss  of  fer- 
tility. In  sugar  it  grows  steadily  richer  and 
produces  usually  about  3,500  pounds  of  dry 
sugar  per  acre.  Some  of  it  will  do  better  than 
this.  It  produces  abundantly  oranges,  figs 
and  grapefruit.  It  is  the  making  of  a  garden 
land  beside  which  Holland  will  pale  into  insig- 

169 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

nificance,  because  the  soil  of  Louisiana  is 
richer  and  its  climate  better  than  that  of 
Holland. 

Suppose  she  had  held  her  swamp  lands  and 
had  found  8,000,000  acres  of  them  worthy  of 
development.  At  the  outside  such  development 
costs  eight  dollars  an  acre.  An  ordinary 
drainage  cost  over  a  large  area  is  two  dollars 
an  acre.  A  fair  figure  for  large  contracts  is 
about  five  dollars  an  acre.  That  will  pay  for 
the  sea  dikes  and  the  drainage  canals,  draw  off 
and  pump  the  water,  and  turn  the  now  hurri- 
cane-swept coast  lands  into  a  paradise.  For 
8,000,000  acres  it  would  have  cost  her 
$40,000,000  of  bonds.  She  would  then  have 
had  public  health  vastly  improved  and  a  great 
estate  to  dispose  of.  Suppose  she  still  retained 
it.  Fertile,  well-watered  land  easily  becomes 
worth  $100  to  $250  an  acre.  Reclaimed 
swamp  land  in  California  no  better  than  this 
rents  for  as  high  as  $67  an  acre  a  year.  If 
Louisiana  had  not  even  taken  the  low  rent, 
five  dollars  an  acre  year,  ordinarily  charged  in 

170 


I1 

.8 


0      « 


s  - 


<L>     O 

6       0> 


I! 


"I" 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

the  St.  Francis  swamp  for  raw  land,  but  had 
asked  only  four  dollars  an  acre,  she  would  have 
had  an  annual  income  of  $32,000,000,  of  which 
$7,000,000  would  have  amortized  her  debt, 
leaving  her  with  $25,000,000  each  year  to 
spend. 

Now  we  begin  to  see  something  in  this  pub- 
lic conservation  work.  Louisiana  has  no  com- 
pulsory education  because  she  cannot  afford 
to  educate  her  colored  children.  Louisiana 
has  child  labor  because  she  is  too  poor  to  en- 
force child-labor  laws.  Ignorance,  illiteracy, 
bad  government  and  child  labor  go  hand  in 
hand  with  lack  of  schools.  Twenty-five  mil- 
lions a  year  added  to  her  income  —  think  what 
that  would  do  for  her  schools! 

Think  of  that  sum,  year  after  year,  divided 
into  things  to  benefit  the  public !  Think  of  two 
million  a  year  spent  to  develop  great  public 
'docks  and  warehouses  in  her  ports  to  facilitate 
her  trade  and  increase  the  education  and  de- 
velopment of  her  people!  Think  of  a  million 
a  year  to  put  a  library  into  every  village! 

171 


THE    CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

Think  —  but  you  cannot  think  to  the  end  of 
the  things  that  an  income  of  $25,000,000  a 
year,  debt  free,  would  mean  to  that  swampy; 
state. 

More  than  twice  the  land  allotted  to  Loui- 
siana, 20,000,000  acres,  was  patented  by  Uncle 
Sam  to  Florida.  Nearly  all  of  this,  three-fifths 
of  the  surface  of  the  state,  was  given  away 
without  return,  by  the  legislature,  to  induce 
the  building  of  railroads. 

Things  went  along  into  the  1900  decade 
before  a  governor  of  the  state,  refusing  to 
recognize  some  of  these  transfers,  plunged  the 
whole  matter  into  the  courts  and  succeeded  in 
emerging  with  2,000,000  acres  of  the  original 
bounty  still  in  the  state  treasury. 

Under  the  leadership  of  Gov.  Napoleon  B. 
Broward,  Florida  passed  a  direct  taxation  law 
which  lays  a  tax  of  six  cents  an  acre  on  all  the 
land  in  the  great  drainage  districts.  That 
which  includes  the  Everglades  contains  some 
4,000,000  acres,  of  which  the  state  owns  half. 

Into  that  wilderness  of  matted  grass,  islands 
172 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

of  trees,  alligators  and  Seminole  Indians,  the 
state  started  four  great  steel  dredges,  each 
from  a  different  angle,  at  the  sea  edge.  They 
tore  out  the  soft  limestone  and  the  matted 
grass  and  soil  in  immense  gulps,  cutting  canals 
sixty  feet  wide  and  ten  feet  deep  into  the  rim 
of  rock  which  held  the  water  over  the  land. 
As  they  advanced  the  water  drained  off  and 
they  are  well  now  on  their  way  toward  the 
shores  of  Lake  Okechobee,  the  central  res- 
ervoir of  the  Everglades,  with  a  million  acres 
of  dry  land  behind  them,  much  of  it  already  in 
cultivation. 

When  they  tap  Okechobee  the  whole  water 
surface  will  drop  away  ten  feet  or  more  below 
its  former  level  and  leave  a  wonderfully  fer- 
tile region  penetrated  by  ample  and  permanent 
navigable  canals.  This  land  tests  so  rich  in 
nitrogen  as  to  run  in  cases  2.25  per  cent  in  that 
lifemaking  element.  One-tenth  of  one  per 
cent  is  ample  for  most  crops.  It  has  been  com- 
puted that  every  ton  of  this  soil  contains  more 
than  six  dollars'  worth  of  nitrate.  Some  of 

173 


THE    CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

this  drained  land  has  produced  6,000  pounds 
of  dry  sugar  to  the  acre,  and  the  million  acres 
now  dry  will  produce  in  a  year  more  than  we 
import  in  two  years  into  the  United  States 
from  Cuba. 

These  which  I  have  described  are  but  a  few 
of  the  swamps.  Big  and  little  they  exist  in 
every  section  of  the  country.  The  Reclama- 
tion Service  is  draining  one  at  Klamath  lake 
in  Oregon  as  a  part  of  an  irrigation  project. 
California  is  recovering  more  than  a  million 
acres  from  her  two  central  rivers,  the  San 
Joaquin  and  the  Sacramento.  New  England 
finds  that  the  old  bog  holes,  shunned  by  the 
farmers  of  a  generation  ago,  are  the  richest 
parts  of  her  farms  to-day. 

In  the  end,  when  the  drainage  process  has 
been  carried  to  its  natural  conclusion,  obeying 
the  law  of  demanS  for  land,  and  the  law  of 
public  health,  there  will  be  75,000,000  acres 
of  new  farming  land  thrown  open  to  our  use. 
This  land  will  produce  in  a  year,  if  it  is  prop- 
erly handled,  more  than  half  as  much  as  the 

174 


SWAMP   DRAINAGE 

crop  return  we  receive  from  our  entire  country 
to-day.  If  it  were  all  in  the  South,  under  cot- 
ton conditions,  it  would  produce  with  careful 
tillage  60,000,000  bales  of  cotton,  five  times 
our  annual  supply.  If  it  were  all  in  the 
corn  country  it  would  produce  5,000,000,000 
bushels,  twice  our  present  crop.  If  it  were 
divided  properly  it  would  produce  all  our  corn 
crop,  all  our  cotton  crop,  250,000,000  bushels 
of  wheat,  300,000,000  bushels  of  oats,  and 
20,000,000  tons  of  alfalfa  and  hay,  —  a  very 
pretty  addition  to  the  national  income,  all  to 
be  had  by  a  natural  step  in  the  Conservation  of 
Water. 


175 


CHAPTER   VIII 

IRRIGATION 

Everything  which  one  does  toward  the  Con- 
servation of  Water  produces  a  new  miracle. 
The  harnessing  of  a  little  brook  snatches  the 
elements  of  life  out  of  the  air  and  gives  them  to 
the  land  to  produce  crops;  and  the  same  dam 
deepens  the  brook  and  turns  it  into  a  highway 
by  which  the  farmer  may  cheaply  market  his 
products.  The  digging  of  a  ditch  transforms, 
almost  over  night,  certainly  in  a  season,  a  ma- 
lignant, loathsome  swamp  into  a  garden,  pro- 
ducing 6,000  pounds  of  dry  sugar  to  the  acre, 
or  renting  for  sixty  dollars  an  acre-year  to  the 
thrifty  grower  of  asparagus  for  the  canning 
factories.  The  spending  of  millions  of  dollars 
to  provide  pure  drinking  water  for  a  city  un- 
expectedly provides  the  people  with  labor- 

176 


IRRIGATION 

saving  power,  and  the  public  as  a  body  with  an 
income  which  turns  over  night  into  libraries, 
new  schools,  parks  and  help  for  the  poor.  But 
the  miracle  of  them  all  which  holds  the  eye, 
which  sings  in  the  heart  of  those  who  behold  it 
and  are  of  it,  the  miracle  which  means  new  life 
and  hope  to  a  great  part  of  the  nation  —  is  the 
wonder  work  of  irrigation,  of  the  addition  of 
water  to  the  desert. 

Out  of  the  apparently  sterile  sands  plants  of 
every  useful  sort  spring  up  in  abundance  and 
prosper.  The  continual  sunshine  of  the  desert 
country  magnifies  and  prospers  their  growth. 
The  fertile  elements  of  the  soil,  not  washed 
away  by  continual  rains,  but  gently  dissolved 
and  held  in  position  at  the  right  time  for  ab- 
sorption by  the  plants,  add  to  this  growth. 
Plant  culture  becomes  a  factory  process,  but 
the  results  are  the  results  of  art  rather  than  of 
machinery.  Orchards  such  as  the  world  has 
never  known  before,  wheat  and  alfalfa  such  as 
no  other  land  has  ever  borne,  potatoes  and  other 
"  truck  "  in  many  times  their  usual  abundance. 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

reward  the  man  who  opens  the  gate  and  lets  the 
water  flow  upon  the  land.  From  poverty  on 
three  hundred  acres  of  sterile  land,  from  labor 
that  began  before  day  and  continued  after 
nightfall,  from  heartbreaking  toil  and  inability 
to  care  properly  for  his  children,  to  easy  com- 
fort and  prosperity  on  ten  to  twenty  acres,  to 
labor  within  the  proper  hours,  to  a  rich  reward 
in  money  and  in  self-respect,  to  an  ability  to 
educate  his  children  and  himself,  to  keep 
abreast  of  his  times,  to  be  a  citizen  as  well  as 
a  farmer  —  that  is  the  effect  of  the  irrigation 
part  of  conservation  upon  the  farmer  of  the 
arid  lands.  That  is  why  there  is  a  rush  to  the 
west  and  to  independence,  a  starting  out  from 
city  and  from  the  farm  to  this  new,  this  ancient, 
desert  land.  And  that  is  why  in  the  irri- 
gation region  there  are  springing  up  inde- 
pendent villages  of  farmers,  intelligent,  well 
educated,  sturdy,  prosperous,  who  travel  in  the 
winter  to  learn  about  their  country,  who 
neither  buy  nor  sell  their  votes,  who  think 
strongly  upon  public  affairs,  who  add,  in 

178 


IRRIGATION 

short,  to  the  nation  a  stability  and  a  dignity 
which  it  needs  in  its  affairs. 

And  all  this  from  the  turning  of  a  torrent 
into  a  reservoir;  and  the  reservoired  water 
over  a  desert  waste. 

The  western  part  of  America  contains  sev- 
eral great  regions  which  are  short  of  rainfall; 
and  these  are  the  home  of  irrigation.  From 
middle  Kansas  west  to  the  Rocky  Mountains 
extends  the  semi-arid  region,  having  a  rain- 
fall of  ten  to  fifteen  inches,  most  of  it  falling 
at  the  time  when  it  is  least  needed  for  crops. 
In  the  mountains  themselves  there  is  abundant 
rain  to  water  the  valleys ;  but  to  the  north  lies 
Wyoming  and  southern  Idaho  —  and  farther 
east  Montana  and  North  Dakota,  parched 
throughout  the  year  like  a  desert.  This  south- 
ern Idaho  desert  reaches  up  around  the  famous 
Palouse  wheat  country  into  central  Washing- 
ton, straddles  both  sides  of  the  Columbia,  and 
includes  the  Yakima  region  and  everything 
up  to  the  Cascades.  It  takes  in  the  land  about 
the  Umatilla  reservation,  and  all  the  heart 

179 


THE    CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

of  Oregon  westward  almost  to  Hood  river, 
and  extends  southward  into  California  and 
Nevada,  and  southwestward  to  the  marshy 
desert  about  Klamath  lake.  All  through 
Nevada  and  Utah  the  desert  predominates. 
As  the  progression  is  southward  it  becomes 
triumphant,  and  across  southern  California, 
Arizona  and  parts  of  New  Mexico  it  marches 
in  complete  possession.  There  sand  waste  and 
desolation,  peopled  by  the  cactus  and  the 
Apache,  have  for  the  century  of  American 
invasion  blocked  all  real  progress. 

Much  of  the  desert  is  rock,  intractable  and 
useless.  But  the  greater  part  is  sand  and  vol- 
canic ash,  a  varied,  shifting  soil,  prey  of  the 
winds  ancl  the  rare  torrential  rains,  apparently 
the  most  worthless  soil  in  creation.  Yet  it  is 
this  apparently  worthless  soil  which  yields  most 
readily  to  cultivation  when  the  water  is  put 
upon  it  and  which  creates  the  marvel  I  have 
described  —  the  miracle  of  irrigation.  There 
is  almost  no  limit  to  the  amount  of  land  in  the 
western  country  which  can  be  improved  by 

180 


IRRIGATION 

irrigating  ;  but  there  is  a  limit  to  the  amount 
of  water  which  is  available  for  it.  Enough 
perhaps  for  75,000,000  acres  (a  tract  equal  to 
all  our  swamps)  can  be  provided  for  by  close 
reservoiring  among  the  mountains ;  and  so  not 
three  states  but  six  states,  equal  to  Ohio,  Indi- 
ana, Illinois,  Iowa,  Kentucky  and  Missouri  will 
be  added  to  the  nation  by  the  Conservation  of 
water  —  by  the  drainage  of  the  too- wet  lands 
and  the  watering  of  the  too-dry. 

Irrigation  is  a  heritage  from  the  earliest 
historic  times.  In  the  ruins  of  Babylon  are 
found  the  remains  of  enormous  and  very 
complete  canal  systems  which  conserved  the 
waters  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris  and 
spread  them  over  the  land  of  the  desert.  The 
overflow  of  the  Nile  long  furnishecl  the  only 
fertility  for  Egypt,  until  the  primitive  inhabi- 
tants learned  to  dip  the  water  from  the  river 
and  elevate  it  stage  by  stage  to  the  bench 
lands.  India  for  2,000  years  has  been  engaged 
in  irrigation,  and  under  the  English  has  ac- 
quired a  system  of  irrigating  and  navigation 

181 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

canals  which  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  the  world. 
So  this  form  of  Conservation  is  new  only  in 
America,  where  its  possibilities  have  burst  upon 
the  nation  like  a  meteor  suddenly  blazing  in  the 
sky  —  but  not,  like  a  meteor,  as  suddenly  to 
disappear. 

In  this  land  the  history  of  irrigation  begins 
with  the  Mormons  who,  after  their  hegira, 
found  in  Utah  only  a  few  watered  and  fertile 
acres  and  for  their  own  salvation  began  turning 
the  water  from  the  rivers  into  ditches.  They 
found  their  labors  doubly  rewarded.  From 
that  beginning,  little  by  little  the  movement 
spread,  through  private  ownership,  leading  to 
struggles  over  water,  to  fierce  battles  for  the 
water  supply  of  an  exhausted  river,  to  the  be- 
ginnings —  as  yet  often  crude  and  unsettled  — 
of  a  body  of  "  water  law  "  making  the  titles  to 
water  defensible  in  court,  and  from  that  to  the 
sudden  systematizing  and  extension  of  (irriga- 
tion under  two  great  laws,  the  Reclamation  act 
and  the  Carey  act  passed  by  the  national 
Congress. 

182 


IRRIGATION 

Before  we  take  these  up  and  examine  the 
tremendous  work  that  has  been  done  under 
them  it  is  necessary  to  have  a  very  clear  idea 
of  just  what  irrigation  consists  of,  how  it  is 
accomplished,  and  why  there  is  need  for  public 
action  and  control  of  it.  Irrigation  originated 
in  Utah  (and  has  developed  in  many  other 
places)  in  the  simple  process  of  watering  lands 
from  a  river  which  flowed  through  the  dry  sea- 
son. In  many  parts  of  the  west  there  are  rivers 
fed  by  the  water  from  glaciers  and  from  melt- 
ing snows,  or  supplied  by  rainfall  on  distant 
mountains,  which  flow  through  parched  and 
desolate  valleys.  The  Snake  River  is  such  a 
stream  in  Idaho,  and  the  magnificent  Columbia 
in  Oregon  and  Washington.  The  latter  stream, 
clear  greenish  blue,  with  a  powerful  and  abun- 
dant discharge,  passes  for  hundreds  of  miles  be- 
tween irregular  banks  that  are  desolate  yellow- 
gray  desert,  on  which  no  green  thing  appears. 
No  rain  falls  in  this  region  in  the  growing  sea- 
son, and  the  water  in  the  river  below  is  of  no 
use  to  the  land  above  it. 

183 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

This  situation  prevailed  in  Utah,  and  the  in- 
dustrious Mormons,  throwing  little  wing  dams 
or  complete  cross  dams  out  into  the  bed  of  each 
river,  checked  for  a  moment  the  flow  of  water. 
Then  from  the  end  of  this  they  led  a  ditch  drop- 
ping with  less  slope  than  the  river,  and  follow- 
ing the  contour  of  the  bank  lands,  until  it  was 
high  enough  above  the  river  bed  to  be  led  back 
upon  the  meadow  or  field  and  divided  among 
smaller  ditches  which  distributed  it  over  all  the 
adjacent  land.  When  the  crop  upon  this  land 
needed  watering  the  landowner  simply  opened 
his  head  gate  —  the  gate  at  the  head  of  his 
canal  —  and  allowed  the  water  to  flow  in. 

This  is  irrigation  in  its  simplest  form.  It  is 
available  at  small  expense  only  where  the  lands 
to  be  watered  lie  along  the  side  of  the  stream, 
and  are  comparatively  level.  But  even  this 
system  soon  developed  trouble.  First  one,  then 
a  dozen,  then  a  hundred  farmers  settled  along 
the  stream,  erected  their  dams,  and  established 
their  canals.  The  little  river  dwindled  away 
under  the  increasing  demand  and  at  last,  some 

184 


IRRIGATION 

summer  day,  when  the  first  comer  opened  his 
head-gate  to  water  his  fields,  he  found  the 
stream  bed  dry,  settlers  above  having  taken  all 
the  water,  and  his  crops  perished  for  lack  of  it. 

This  showed  at  once  the  need  of  some  system 
of  distributing  water,  and  on  some  rivers  of 
Utah  the  farmers  measured  the  water  and  di- 
vided it  up  among  themselves  on  a  time  sched- 
ule. Thus  Mr.  Smith  would  use  it  from  three 
o'clock  Monday  afternoon  until  five  o'clock  on 
Tuesday,  when  he  would  close  his  gate  and 
allow  the  water  to  flow  on  down  to  Mr.  Jones, 
below,  who  opened  his  gate  by  schedule  at  that 
time  and  took  the  water  for  twenty-four  hours. 
This  gave  every  one  an  even  chance  but  it  did 
not  solve  the  problem  nor  greatly  lessen  the 
troubles ;  for  more  settlers  still  came.  So  there 
grew  up  the  doctrine  of  "  water  rights  "  still 
one  of  the  most  complicated  things  about 
power  and  irrigation  development  in  the  west 
and  much  needing  comprehensive  settlement) 

This  new  doctrine  provided  that  the  first  ap- 
propriator  of  water  on  a  river  —  that  is  the  first 

185 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

man  who  located  and  irrigated  his  land  —  had 
a  right  thenceforth  to  as  much  water  as  the 
land  he  irrigated  needed,  or  as  much  as  he 
claimed  and  used  at  the  time  of  location.  He 
had  a  prior  right  over  anyone  who  came  after 
him,  even  though  they  settled  higher  upstream. 
This  was  undoubtedly  right,  for  otherwise  a 
settler  having  come  and  developed  his  land 
might  be  reduced  to  starvation  by  a  later  comer 
establishing  above  him.  Step  by  step  the  prior 
rights  on  rivers  were  established,  and  as  there 
came  to  be  a  shortage  of  water  a  settler  high 
up  on  a  river  must  often  see  the  water  flowing 
by  his  fields,  water  to  which  he  had  no  legal 
right  —  while  his  own  fields  were  drying  up. 
Moved  by  the  common  impulses  of  humanity 
and  by  the  suffering  of  his  wife  and  children 
this  settler  would  often  seize  and  use  the  water 
despite  the  right  of  the  man  lower  down,  and 
many  terrible  battles  have  ensued  throughout 
the  west  over  the  right  to  a  running  stream. 

As  irrigation  developed  the  manner  of  using 
the  water  became  more  complicated.     Large 

186 


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IRRIGATION 

corporations  secured  entire  water  rights  to 
rivers,  and  installed  costly  canals  sometimes 
irrigating  thousands  of  acres,  carrying  the 
water  scores  of  miles  and  dividing  it  according 
to  a  fixed  schedule  so  that  every  settler  got  his 
share;  and  this  tended  to  simplify  and  make 
more  reliable  the  whole  irrigation  process. 
Water  rights,  the  right  to  draw  a  definite 
amount  of  water  for  irrigation  to  a  given  piece 
of  land  began  to  be  recorded  and  sold.  A 
buyer  of  land  must  pay  as  close  attention  to 
his  water  title  as  to  his  land  title.  And  so  by 
a  gradual  process  the  legal  and  technical  side 
of  the  business  of  irrigation  involved  a  semi- 
legal, semi-customary  ritual  which  governed 
the  industry. 

In  this  development  of  irrigation  farmers 
ha'd  much  to  learn.  Some  of  the  desert  lands 
were  underlaid  with  porous  subsoil  which  al- 
lowed all  unnecessary  water  to  drain  off. 
Others  were  underlaid  with  impervious  hard- 
pan  or  rock.  In  the  early  days  —  and  it  is 
true  yet  —  farmers  ignorant  of  the  small  need 

187 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

of  their  land  allowed  a  great  deal  too  much 
water  to  flow  over  it,  and  this  either  settled 
down  upon  the  hardpan  or  flowed  along 
through  the  porous  subsoil  until  it  found  hard- 
pan  and  a  resting  place  under  some  neighbor's 
farm  lower  down.  Standing  water  under  the 
land  dissolved  the  alkali  from  the  soil,  and  as 
the  water  increased  year  after  year  it  came 
steadily  nearer  the  surface  until  evaporation 
began  to  accumulate  alkali  at  the  surface  and 
poison  destroy  the  land. 

In  Utah  alone  more  than  a  hundred  thousand 
acres  of  formerly  valuable  irrigated  farm  land 
are  now  brackish  alkali  swamps,  filled  with 
water  from  the  too-abundant  irrigation  above 
them;  and  it  is  only  within  a  decade  that  the 
problem  of  drainage  in  connection  with  irriga- 
tion has  been  solved.  All  irrigated  land  should 
be  carefully  drained  by  tile  or  otherwise,  and 
a  provision  made  for  running  the  drained 
water  back  into  an  irrigation  ditch  or  a  river 
at  a  lower  level.  Then  the  water  passes  off 
naturally  without  dissolving  the  alkali,  and  is 

188 


IRRIGATION 

useful  lower  down.  The  lands  which  are  ruined 
now  can  be  reclaimed  again  by  first  putting  in 
the  drainage  system,  and  then  by  flooding  them 
heavily  through  one  or  two  seasons  and  wash- 
ing the  alkali  back  deep  into  the  soil  or  out 
through  the  drainage  system.  Irrigation  and 
drainage  must  go  hand  in  hand  for  the  health 
and  best  use  of  the  land. 

How  much  water  is  essential  for  irriga- 
tion? That  question  is  one  on  which  many 
farmers  and  even  engineers  widely  differ.  At 
a  state  examination  before  the  legislature  of 
Montana  not  long  ago  farmers  from  the  east- 
ern part  of  the  state  placed  the  necessary 
amount  all  the  way  from  six  inches  to  twenty 
feet  per  year  —  that  is,  the  amount  which  if  it 
stood  all  at  once  on  the  land  would  be  of  that 
depth. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  amount  of  rainfall 
during  the  crop  season  in  Illinois  is  seldom 
more  than  twenty  inches,  and  anything  more 
than  that  is  disastrous.  That  rainfall  is  not 
controlled,  comes  often  at  the  wrong  time,  and 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

does  not  result  in  as  much  benefit  as  twelve 
inches  of  rain  properly  applied.  A  foot  of 
water  used  with  discretion  and  at  the  right  time 
is  ordinarily  enough  for  any  crop.  Two  feet  is 
far  too  much.  A  guarantee  of  twelve  to 
eighteen  inches  with  an  assurance  that  one  can- 
not get  too  much  for  the  land  is  a  safe  pro- 
vision for  the  wise  conduct  of  an  irrigated 
farm. 

Rainfall  is  as  irregular  in  the  irrigation 
country  as  in  the  east,  and  the  streams  which 
supply  the  irrigated  lands  in  summer  are  often 
roaring  torrents  in  the  winter  and  spring.  It 
was  from  the  very  earliest  times  evident  that 
if  the  flood  waters  could  be  retained  and  re- 
leased in  dry  seasons  the  area  irrigated  could 
be  increased  and  the  business  made  safer. 
Capital,  however,  did  not  risk  itself  in  desert 
enterprises,  and  up  to  1895  there  was  very  slow 
progress  made  in  developing  anything  like  sys- 
tem and  reservoiring  on  any  of  the  western 
rivers.  In  that  year,  however,  Senator  Carey, 
of  Wyoming,  who  had  from  boyhood  been  a  be- 

190 


IRRIGATION 

liever  in  the  future  of  the  desert,  fought 
through  Congress  against  heavy  opposition  the 
first  official  recognition  ever  given  to  irriga- 
tion by  the  government,  and  paved  the  way  for 
the  great  development  of  the  past  decade. 
This,  the  so-called  "  Carey  Act"  was  merely 
a  rider  on  the  agricultural  appropriation  bill, 
providing  that  in  the  arid  and  semi-arid  states 
of  the  west  one  million  acres  of  desert  land 
should  be  given  by  the  government  to  each 
state,  the  state  to  make  the  selections,  provided 
that  within  ten  years  the  state  should  cause 
twenty  acres  out  of  every  legal  subdivision  of 
forty  acres  to  be  irrigated  and  improved.  It 
was  provided  that  the  land  must  be  sold  to  the 
settler  practically  for  nothing  —  fifty  cents  or 
one  dollar  an  acre  —  and  that  no  settler  could 
have  more  than  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres. 

A  year  later  a  vital  and  lifegiving  amend- 
ment was  also  passed  at  the  instigation  of  Sen- 
ator Carey  providing  that  large  tracts  of  des- 
ert lands,  including  the  irrigation  improvement 
works,  canals  and  water  rights,  might  be 

191. 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

mortgaged  to  support  bond  issues  to  carry 
out  the  projects;  and  that  as  fast  as  each  far- 
mer completed  his  payments  on  forty  acres  that 
forty  acres  was  absolutely  freed  from  the  mort- 
gage and  held  no  farther  liability.  That  is,  the 
failure  of  half  the  farmers  to  meet  payments 
kept  their  land  liable  for  the  money,  but  could 
not  hamper  or  throw  a  burden  or  cloud  on  the 
land  of  the  rest  who  had  paid  their  dues 
promptly. 

Under  this  fair  law  irrigation  by  big  cor- 
porations has  gone  forward  with  tremendous 
strides.  Idaho  especially  has  worked  under  it, 
but  millions  of  acres  in  other  states  have  been 
turned  into  gardens.  Under  this  act  a  big 
corporation  having  been  assigned  a  tract  of  one 
hundred  thousand  or  two  hundred  thousand 
acres  by  the  state  secures  the  right  to  enough 
water  to  irrigate  it,  either  by  "  filing  "  on  the 
stream  in  its  natural  condition,  or  by  creating 
reservoirs  enough  to  add  to  an  already  approp- 
riated stream  enough  low  water  flow  to  com- 
pensate for  what  they  take  out.  Then  they 

192 


IRRIGATION 

issue  bonds  and  on  the  money  so  raised  erect 
the  necessary  dams  and  gates  and  canals,  em- 
ploy ditch-riders  to  run  the  system,  and  sell  the 
water  rights  outright  to  the  settlers.  Each  set- 
tler pays  the  state  a  small  sum  for  his  land,  and 
pays  the  water  company  whatever  it  is  entitled 
to  for  the  water,  usually  about  fifty  dollars  an 
acre  for  the  perpetual  ownership  of  the  water 
interest,  spread  over  ten  years  or  more  for  pay- 
ment. This  payment  transfers  the  dam  and 
gates  and  ditches  —  the  entire  equipment  with 
all  its  appurtenances  and  titles  —  to  the  far- 
mers themselves  who  then  form  an  association 
which  conducts  their  affairs.  A  water  charge 
running  from  fifty  cents  to  two  dollars  an  acre 
each  year  is  paid  in  to  this  association  and  that 
is  enough  to  keep  up  the  ditches,  employ  riders, 
renew  and  repair  construction  work,  and  keep 
the  system  in  working  order  practically  in  per- 
petuity. 

This  is  a  very  practical,  safe  and  efficient 
method    of    working    out    large     irrigation 
schemes.    It  has  been  found  so  safe  and  secure 
13  193 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

that  large  private  irrigation  companies  have 
taken  up  the  same  work  in  other  ways,  secur- 
ing large  tracts  of  land,  putting  in  expensive 
and  permanent  canals  and  works,  and  selling 
the  land  and  the  water  rights  to  the  farmers  at 
often  an  excessive  profit  —  sometimes  charg- 
ing as  high  as  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  an 
acre  for  the  land,  or  even  <5ne  thousand  dollars 
an  acre  for  land  on  which  an  orchard  has  been 
planted. 

But  all  this  provides  only  for  the  schemes 
which  interest  private  capital.  There  was 
needed  some  other  power  which,  regardless  of 
the  preliminary  expense,  could  take  charge  of 
entire  rivers,  reservoir  them,  create  enormous 
storage,  develop  the  power,  put  the  water  on 
the  land,  and  sell  on  easy  terms  to  the  home- 
steaders, projects  so  complicated  and  expensive 
that  the  Carey  Act  promoters  were  not  inter- 
ested in  them. 

This  gave  rise  to  the  national  Reclamation 
Act,  passed  in  June,  1902,  which  provides  that 
in  all  the  western  states  the  money  received 

194 


IRRIGATION 

from  the  sale  of  public  lands,  less  the  expenses 
and  five  per  cent  for  education,  shall  be  set  aside 
to  create  a  fund  for  the  reclamation  of  arid 
lands.  A  department  called  the  Reclamation 
Service  was  created  under  the  Interior  Depart- 
ment and  was  put  and  continued  under  the 
charge  of  Frederick  H.  Newell,  an  able  and 
inspired  engineer.  Under  this  act  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Interior  may  withdraw  from  entry 
the  land  belonging  to  the  government  sus- 
ceptible of  irrigation,  and  turn  it  over  to  the 
Reclamation  Service  to  be  watered.  This  de- 
partment then  creates  the  necessary  reservoirs, 
clears  and  establishes  the  titles,  constructs  the 
canals  and  ditches,  and  throws  the  tract  open 
to  homestead  entry.  This  act  is  very  faulty  and 
only  the  kindly  interpretation  given  it  by  Direc- 
tor Newell  has  made  it  possible  of  execution. 
Thus  by  the  homestead  act  each  farmer  is  com- 
pelled to  build  his  home  and  live  on  the  tract 
as  soon  as  the  project  is  begun,  in  order  to 
"prove  up"  on  his  land.  As  it  may  be  five  to 
seven  years  before  the  dam  is  built,  the  ditches 

195 


THE    CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

constructed,  and  the  water  brought,  there  is 
in  the  meanwhile  absolutely  no  way  for  the  far- 
mer to  support  himself  on  the  land  and  raise 
any  crop  or  even  to  secure  domestic  water. 

In  spite  of  this,  however,  the  government 
projects  have  been  made  popular,  and  immense 
works  of  tremendous  strength  and  permanency 
have  been  developed  for  them.  Some  of  these 
projects  are  colossal  in  their  daring,  their  en- 
gineering audacity  and  their  value  to  the  na- 
tion. It  is  worth  while  at  this  point  examin- 
ing some  of  them  to  see  what  magnitude  these 
works  attain,  what  a  great  thing  this  irrigation 
marvel  has  become  in  the  short  years  it  has 
been  under  way. 

(One  of  the  government  projects  which  has 
attracted  the  most  attention  because  of  its  as- 
tounding audacity  is  that  of  Salt  River  in  south- 
ern Arizona,  made  famous  first  by  the  construc- 
tion of  the  Roosevelt  Dam.  Salt  River  is  a 
branch  of  the  Gila,  which  in  turn  flows  into  the 
Colorado.  It  comes  out  of  the  wonderful 
mountains  of  the  old  Apache  stronghold 


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IRRIGATION 

through  which  General  Crook  so  long  pursueS 
Geronimo  and  his  bloodthirsty  warriors.  It 
is  the  old  land  of  the  Cliff  Dwellers,  the  land' 
of  sandstone  and  limestone  cliffs,  of  weird  and 
gigantic  cactus,  of  thirst  and  death  for  the  trav- 
eler —  the  desert  land  of  Arizona.  In  the  midst 
of  it,  in  a  great  plain  lies  Phoenix,  a  beautiful 
city  watered  from  Salt  River;  and  the  Recla- 
mation project  was  to  store  and  make  useful 
the  flood  waters  of  this  river  for  the  purpose 
of  watering  the  great  plain  and  making  about 
Phoenix  a  garden  as  beautiful  as  the  city  itself. 
For  this  purpose  the  engineers  went  above 
Phoenix  into  the  mountains  to  the  wonderful 
gorge  of  Salt  River,  sprinkling  the  way  with 
wells  which  tapped  the  abundant  underground 
waters  of  the  desert.  (Up  through  the  canon 
and  over  the  spurs  of  the  mountain  they  blasted 
out  of  the  rock  a  magnificent  roadway,  broad 
and  gentle,  forty  miles  in  length,  over  which 
the  machinery  might  be  teamed./  In  the  valley 
itself  above  the  dam-site  they  built  the  city  of 
Roosevelt,  destined  to  be  overflowed  when  the 

197 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

dam  was  built,  but  meanwhile  substantial,  pros- 
perous, with  schools,  churches  and  theaters, 
a  real  city  for  a  day.  They  built  a  cement  plant 
to  make  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
barrels  of  cement  needed  for  the  dam ;  and  built 
a  dam  for  waterpower  above  the  big  dam-site ; 
carried  the  water  for  sixteen  miles,  plunged  it 
through  a  tunnel  in  the  mountain  down  a  fall  of 
two  hundred  and  twenty  feet  to  the  turbines 
and  developed  a  power  of  four  thousand  four 
hundred  horse  to  light  the  works,  to  run  the 
many  machine  plants  and  the  cement  mills  and 
to  do  the  multiple  tasks  connected  with  the 
building  of  the  dam.  Then  in  the  gorge  they 
erected  the  immense  storage  dam  —  a  fifth  of  a 
mile  along  its  crest  and  with  a  twenty-foot 
roadway  on  top  of  it,  even  with  the  top  of  a 
twenty-two-story  office  building  had  one  been 
erected  beside  it.  Two  hundred  and  eighty- 
four  feet  high,  arched  upstream  against  the 
current,  the  Roosevelt  dam  when  it  was  begun 
was  the  greatest  in  the  world;  and  its  whole 
purpose  was  to  carry  out  the  Roosevelt  policy 

198 


IRRIGATION 

of  Conservation,  by  holding  back  the  waste 
from  Salt  River  to  turn  the  desert  into  a  pro- 
ductive land.) 

Apache  Indians,  children  of  the  old  war- 
riors of  Geronimo,  descendants  of  those  who 
drove  the  Cliff  Dwellers  from  the  land,  labored 
on  the  road  and  on  the  dam.  Some  of  them 
advanced  to  be  foremen  and  inspectors,  and 
the  amazing  spectacle  was  presented  of  these 
red  men,  under  the  direction  of  white  engineers, 
conveying  water  for  waterpower  through  a 
tunnel  in  the  mountain  constructed  before  the 
dawn  of  our  history  by  the  Cliff  Dwellers  them- 
selves with  their  axes  of  stone. 

But  a  dam  is  not  the  whole  of  an  irrigation 
project.  There  must  be  a  great  canal  from  the 
dam  down  to  the  point  of  diversion;  and 
numerous  gates  and  canals  for  separating  the 
water  into  divisions  and  distributing  it  at 
different  levels  and  over  broad  region  —  for 
there  are  two  hundred  thousand  acres  under 
this  dam. 

In  the  desert  water  is  lost  rapidly  from  two 
199 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

causes  —  evaporation  and  seepage.  It  must  be 
kept  from  seeping  into  the  ground  and  from 
wasting  into  the  air.  So  enclosed  concrete 
conduits  built  of  semiround  forms  of  concrete 
—  piping,  really  —  are  laid  in  the  ditches,  and 
the  water  flows  through  these,  protected 
against  loss,  to  the  point  where  it  is  turned  into 
the  farmer's  open  ditch. 

The  town  of  Roosevelt,  once  numbering  two 
thousand  inhabitants,  has  disappeared  now. 
Instead  there  lies  a  magnificent  mountain  lake, 
storing  an  immense  volume  of  water  and  held 
back  by  the  dam,  the  largest  artificial  lake  in 
the  world.  At  the  foot  of  the  dam  the  water 
escaping  into  the  irrigation  channel  develops 
under  this  enormous  pressure  twenty-six  thou- 
sand electric  horsepower,  and  much  of  this  is 
wired  to  Phoenix,  and  distributed  in  town  and 
country  to  light  the  houses  of  the  farmers  and 
to  do  the  work  of  the  farms.  But  part  of  it 
is  wired  to  the  Sacaton  Indian  reservation  in 
an  act  of  justice  seldom  performed  by  our  gov- 
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IRRIGATION 

merly  owned  large  water  rights  have  been  for 
years  carrying  on  a  miserable  existence  in  land 
from  which  white  men  had  filched  their  water. 
Now  the  government  has  dug  deep  wells  to 
the  underground  supply  for  them;  and  power 
created  by  the  running  water  at  the  Roosevelt 
dam,  carried  through  a  slender  wire,  will  pump 
this  underground  water  to  the  surface  and  with 
it  irrigate  the  lands  of  the  civilized  Indians. 
Thus  we  see  water  by  conservation  doing  a 
treble  duty  —  irrigating  the  land  at  Phoenix, 
furnishing  power  for  city  lighting,  and  pump- 
ing up  other  water  to  irrigate  the  Indian 
lands. 

Pumping,  as  it  is  practiced  to  supply  the 
needs  of  these  Indians  is  not  a  new  feature  of 
irrigation.  Even  in  the  most  primitive  coun- 
tries waterwheels  of  some  sort  are  in  use  to 
lift  water  from  a  low  to  a  higher  level.  Along 
the  Columbia  River  in  the  most  barren  and 
desolate  part  of  its  valley  one  sees  great  water- 
wheels,  often  forty  feet  in  diameter,  set  out 
from  the  bank  so  that  the  water  striking  their 

201 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

lower  blades  continually  revolves  them.  Buc- 
kets attached  to  the  side  of  the  wheel  are  filled 
as  they  pass  through  the  water,  and  at  the  top 
of  the  revolution  pour  the  water  out  into  a 
trough  from  which  it  runs  to  a  canal.  This  is 
but  a  slight  elevation  —  thirty  feet  or  so  above 
the  river;  but  by  conducting  the  water  in  a 
flume  for  a  mile  or  more  down  the  bank  at  a 
less  slope  than  that  of  the  river,  it  is  brought 
high  enough  to  flow  over  the  bench  lands  and 
irrigate  them.  Fruit  orchards,  alfalfa  fields 
and  truck  gardens  as  well  as  wheat  fields  ap- 
pear as  unexpected  green  spots  in  the  midst  of 
the  sand  and  ash  of  the  desert. 

In  many  places,  one  or  two  of  which  we  shall 
describe,  the  Reclamation  Service  and  to  some 
extent  private  corporations  are  using  water- 
power  to  pump  water  up  to  high  bench  lands ; 
but  the  most  remarkable  pumping  development, 
especially  as  it  is  a  far  advance  in  Conservation, 
is  that  in  the  irrigation  projects  of  the  Reclama- 
tion Service  along  the  upper  Missouri  river. 
Coming  down  out  of  Montana  after  its  union 

202 


IRRIGATION 

with  the  Milk  and  the  Yellowstone  Rivers  the 
Missouri  flows  through  a  desolate  region  of 
buttes  and  "  bad  lands  "  where  it  acquires  a 
heavy  burden  of  silt,  but  does  little  good  to  the 
neighboring  country.  It  is  lined  by  bench  lands 
on  several  levels  and  back  of  them  high  table 
lands,  some  of  which  can  be  irrigated  by  water 
brought  from  a  long  distance  by  canals.  But 
for  the  most  part  the  best  lands  are  low  down, 
near  the  river,  and  in  small  parcels,  of  two  or 
three  square  miles  in  extent  so  that  extensive 
damming  and  canal  construction  cannot  be 
made  to  pay. 

All  of  these  hills  of  the  Missouri  for  several 
hundred  miles  are  underlaid  with  lignite  coal, 
a  soft  brown  fuel  of  less  heat  value  than 
bituminous.  This  lignite  crops  out  everywhere, 
sometimes  in  veins  forty  feet  thick;  and  the 
greater  part  of  it  is  held  in  reserve  by  the 
government.  Experiments  have  shown  that 
while  it  is  difficult  to  use  under  a  boiler,  it  can 
be  consumed  in  a  gas-producer  —  a  modern 
machine  for  securing  the  largest  power  value 

203 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

from  coal  —  and  the  gas  from  this  pro- 
ducer can  either  be  used  in  an  internal  com- 
bustion engine,  or  can  be  burned  under  a 
steamboiler  with  great  economy  to  produce 
steam. 

Consequently  the  government  has  decided  to 
use  this  lignite  coal  to  make  the  Missouri  table 
lands  productive.  Mines  have  been  opened  at  a 
central  point  near  Williston,  North  Dakota,  and 
a  track  built  from  the  mine  entrance  to  a  power 
plant  a  little  lower  down  so  that  the  coal  from 
the  mine  descends  by  gravity  to  the  power 
house.  The  gas-producer  is  the  most  economi- 
cal form  known  of  burning  coal,  and  takes  the 
"mine  run"  as  it  comes,  without  the  loss  of 
slack  or  screenings.  The  largest  efficiency  is 
thus  obtained,  and  the  conservation  of  the  fuel 
is  put  forward  as  an  illustration  of  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  day  when  instead  of  transporting 
fuel  by  rail  we  will  turn  it  all  into  power  at  the 
mines. 

The  power  house  at  the  mouth  of  theymine 
produces  electric  current.  This  in  turn  is 

204 


IRRIGATION 

carried  by  wire  to  half  a  dozen  irrigating  proj- 
ects up  and  down  the  Missouri,  all  within  one 
hundred  miles  of  Williston.  At  each  project 
there  are  several  irrigating  canals  at  various 
levels,  the  highest  one  hundred  feet  above  the 
river.  In  the  river  floats  a  pumping  barge, 
carrying  electric  motors  and  pumps  which  draw 
water  from  the  river  and  deliver  it  in  a  storage 
basin  on  the  lowest  level.  There  are  other 
motors  and  pumps  which  lift  the  water  to  the 
several  levels  above,  just  enough  to  each  level 
to  water  the  lands  under  that  canal. 

This  project  has  created  along  the  Missouri 
homes  for  several  thousand  families;  and  the 
work  will  be  rapidly  extended.  It  is  of  remark- 
able benefit.  The  wheat  and  alfalfa  produced  on 
these  lands  are  beside  a  navigable  river  and  can 
be  readily  carried  to  market.  The  seeding  of 
the  land  and  the  cultivation  under  the  ditches 
lessens  the  erosion  and  tends  to  improve  the 
river.  Planting  trees  along  the  irrigation  canals 
and  around  the  farms  will  further  increase  this 
tendency,  and  a  beginning  will  be  made  toward 

205 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

the  transformation  of  North  Dakota  and  east- 
ern Montana  into  a  garden. 

Nothing  could  be  more  desolate  than  this 
region  to-day.  It  has  long  been  notorious  under 
the  name  of  the  Bad  Lands.  It  is  cut  by 
intricate  coulees  —  water-courses  torn  out  by 
torrential  rains  and  dry  and  terrible  during  the 
most  of  the  year.  These  coulees  slope  steeply  so 
that  large  reservoirs  can  be  created  only  in  a 
few  places;  but  by  the  damming  first  of  the 
most  favorable  and  then  of  the  less  favorable 
sites,  by  the  planting  of  trees  along  the  edges 
of  the  reservoirs  so  created,  and  the  use  of  the 
water  for  irrigation  by  pumping  after  the  man- 
ner we  have  just  described,  a  great  change 
can  be  wrought.  The  increased  evaporation 
surface  during  the  summer  will  cool  and  modify 
the  summer  climate;  the  increased  humidity 
will  cause  an  increase  of  precipitation;  the 
green  fields  and  the  forests  will  check  the  dust 
storms  and  the  loss  of  soil,  and  thus  facilitate 
the  clarifying  of  the  Missouri.  This  little 
beginning  at  Williston  will  lead  the  way  to  re- 

206 


IRRIGATION 

markable  achievements  which  will  open  up  a 
large  territory  to  settlement. 

Farther  west  and  across  the  mountains  from 
the  Missouri,  on  the  watershed  of  the  Columbia, 
we  find  another  water-pumping  project  equally 
remarkable  and  worth  our  study.  This  is  on 
the  Flathead,  or  Pend  d'  Oreille  river,  just 
below  Flathead  Lake,  on  the  Indian  reserva- 
tion of  that  name  recently  opened  to  settle- 
ment. Flathead  Lake  is  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful lakes  and  one  of  the  finest  reservoir  sites 
in  America.  Fed  by  Flathead  and  many  other 
rivers  which  flow  down  from  Lake  McDonald 
and  from  the  feet  of  the  glaciers  in  Glacier 
Park,  along  the  continental  divide,  it  is  filled 
with  clear  green-blue  water,  cold  and  very  deep. 
The  lake  fluctuates  very  little.  Along  its  east- 
ern shore  is  a  considerable  area  of  bench  land 
backed  by  the  Mission  Range.  North  of  it  and 
on  the  western  shore  are  fruit  lands  of  great 
value.  And  at  the  south,  rising  two  hundred 
feet  or  more  above  the  lake  and  then  descending 
gently  toward  the  Clarke's  Fork,  many  miles 

207 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

away,  is  a  grassy  upland,  an  ideal  farming  land 
for  grain  or,  with  abundant  water,  for  fruit. 
Through  this  upland  the  river  finds  its  way,  the 
outlet  of  the  lake,  through  a  narrow  and 
extremely  beautiful  gorge,  several  hundred  feet 
deep,  in  which  it  falls  over  rapids  and  preci- 
pices, green  and  white  as  it  tumbles,  roaring 
its  way  down  to  the  open  and  gentle  river 
below. 

In  this  gorge  the  Reclamation  Service  is 
erecting  a  dam,  to  hold  back  the  water  and 
develop  power.  Later  another  dam  farther 
upstream,  close  to  the  lake,  will  raise  the  level 
of  that  body  and  add  two  million  acre  feet  to  its 
storage  capacity.  But  the  lower  dam  will  pro- 
duce thirty  thousand  to  fifty  thousand  electric 
horsepower,  some  of  which  will  be  sold  and  the 
rest  used  for  irrigation. 

On  the  summit  of  the  uplands  is  a  great  basin 
in  the  prairie ;  and  this  will  be  transformed  into 
a  storage  basin.  Into  this  the  surplus  water 
of  the  river  will  be  pumped  to  irrigate  some 
two  hundred  thousand  acres  of  the  land  below 

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IRRIGATION 

it  and  turn  the  occasional  wheat  crops  into  reg- 
ular and  abundant  grain,  alfalfa  or  fruit  crops. 
This  is  no  desert  even  now,  but  it  has  occa- 
sional years  of  drought  and  too  little  rain  for 
many  crops.  The  irrigation  project  will  give 
certainty  to  it  and  greater  abundance,  and  the 
power  will  give  comfort  and  convenience  to  the 
farmers  in  their  homes. 

This  project  is  on  the  headwaters  of  the 
Columbia.  When  this  lake  is  turned  into  a  res- 
ervoir and  the  other  great  lakes  of  the  Columbia 
system  are  similarly  treated,  millions  of  acres 
of  the  great  desert  which  borders  the  stream  in 
Washington  and  Oregon  will  be  similarly 
treated.  A  beginning  of  this  work  will  be  made 
at  the  Umatilla  project  where  the  river  of  that 
name  flows  into  the  Columbia.  A  hundred 
miles  away,  on  the  Des  Chutes  River,  a  tremen- 
dous dam  will  be  erected  to  develop  power. 
This  power  will  be  wired  to  Umatilla  and  when 
the  water  of  that  small  river  has  been  exhausted 
the  surplus  of  the  Columbia  will  be  pumped  up 
on  the  land. 

14  209 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

Through  the  whole  extent  of  the  desert  this 
combined  use  of  power  and  irrigation  will  be 
extended;  enough  water  being  reserved  for 
power  to  furnish  what  is  needed,  the  rest  being 
turned  back  upon  the  land.  Instead  of  the  dry, 
wearisome  land  will  be  a  rich  farming  land,  and 
a  population  which  will  produce  more  from  each 
acre  than  is  produced  on  any  similar  tract  in- 
the  world. 

The  Umatilla  project  will  be  an  example  of 
the  power  from  one  river  being  used  to  pump 
the  water  of  another ;  but  the  Reclamation  engi- 
neers have  gone  far  beyond  that  in  their  work. 
They  have  actually  used  one  river  to  irrigate 
the  valley  of  another,  and  to  do  so  have  accom- 
plished heroic  feats  and  astounding  engineer- 
ing achievements.  Two  such  projects  which 
have  attained  national  fame  are  the  Truckee- 
Carson,  and  the  Gunnison-Uncompaghre  proj- 
ects, the  one  in  Nevada,  the  other  in  south- 
western Colorado. 

The  Truckee-Carson  project  is  remarkable 
chiefly  for  the  extent  of  the  work  and  the  union 

210 


IRRIGATION 

of  two  rivers.  The  Truckee  and  the  Carson 
come  down  from  the  eastern  slope  of  the  Sierras 
to  lose  themselves  in  the  Carson  sink,  the 
western  side  of  the  famous  "  Forty-mile  Des- 
ert" where  so  many  of  the  gold  seekers  of  the 
early  days  lost  their  lives.  With  the  exception 
of  Death  Valley  this  is  the  driest  spot  on  the 
continent.  A  dam  thirty  feet  high  has  been 
erected  in  the  Truckee  river  to  divert  its  water 
into  a  cement  lined  canal  thirty-one  miles  long. 
Through  this  it  runs  into  the  Carson  River. 
The  two  rivers  are  thus  gathered  into  a  great 
basin  from  which  in  turn  their  conserved 
waters  are  divided  into  irrigation  canals  over 
the  old  desert  land.  Reno,  Virginia  City  and 
Carson  City  and  other  famous  towns  are  in  the 
immediate  vicinity. 

The  Gunnison-Uncompaghre  project  is  far 
more  remarkable,  and  has  attained  celebrity  for 
the  amazing  feats  of  the  engineers  of  the  Recla- 
mation Service.  These  two  rivers  flow  side  by 
side  through  southwestern  Colorado,  the  Gun- 
nison  with  an  abundant  flow  of  water  from 

21 1 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

eternal  snows,  but  flowing  through  a  rocky 
canon  in  which  the  water  is  absolutely  useless 
for  irrigation;  the  Uncompaghre  flowing 
through  a  broad  valley  and  having  more  than 
one  hundred  thousand  acres  of  irrigable  land 
but  not  enough  water  for  it.  Ten  miles  of 
mountains,  two  thousand  feet  high,  separated 
the  two  rivers.  In  the  face  of  apparently  im- 
passable obstacles  the  engineers  determined  to 
link  these  two  rivers  and  compel  the  wasted 
Gunnison  to  water  the  desert  of  the  Uncom- 
paghre and  to  create  upon  it  homes  for  fifty 
thousand  persons. 

Even  the  preliminary  work  was  accom- 
plished only  at  the  risk  of  life  and  at  the  cost 
of  remarkable  hardship.  The  Black  Canon  of 
the  Gunnison  was  two  thousand  feet  deep,  and 
at  the  foot  of  it  the  river  flowed  or  rather 
tumbled  down  repeated  falls,  over  hidden 
rocks,  between  walls  so  precipitous  that 
there  were  apparently  no  places  on  which 
the  engineers  could  obtain  a  foothold  for 
miles  at  a  time. 

212 


IRRIGATION 

Into  this  apparently  certain  death  plunged 
two  young  engineers  of  the  Reclamation  Ser- 
vice, on  inflated  mattresses,  determined  to  ex- 
plore the  gorge  and  determine  whether  the 
waters  could  be  dammed  and  diverted  through 
a  tunnel  to  the  Uncompaghre.  Their  sufferings 
and  their  narrow  escapes  on  the  trip  make  a 
story  too  long  to  relate  here  yet  without  dupli- 
cation in  the  history  of  American  exploring. 
At  one  time  it  was  necessary  for  them  success- 
ively to  plunge  into  the  river  from  a  temporary 
resting  place  in  the  heart  of  the  gorge,  and 
allow  a  flood  to  sweep  them,  helpless,  over  the 
brow  of  a  waterfall  the  foot  of  which  was  hid- 
den from  them  and  might,  and  probably  would, 
be  a  mass  of  rocks  on  which  they  would  be 
dashed  to  death.  Nevertheless  they  had  no 
alternative;  and  having  made  the  leap  fortu- 
nately were  plunged  into  a  deep  pool  and 
escaped  alive. 

Out  of  this  trip  and  the  information  it  pro- 
duced the  plans  for  the  diversion  of  the  Gun- 
nison  were  completed.  Even  then  the  task  was 

213 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

terrific  in  its  hardships  and  handicaps.  Many 
times  men  were  lowered  over  the  canon  walls 
by  ropes,  hundreds  of  feet,  before  a  foothold 
was  obtained  and  a  road  begun.  Then  a  road 
sixteen  miles  long,  often  twenty-three  per  cent 
grade,  had  to  be  blasted  out  of  the  side  of  the 
canon  to  obtain  a  route  to  the  mouth  of  the 
tunnel  down  which  machinery  could  be  carried. 
A  power  plant  had  to  be  built  in  the  Gunnison 
at  heavy  cost  in  hardship  and  labor,  and  when 
this  was  all  done  a  tunnel  must  be  driven 
through  the  mountain,  six  miles  long,  and  ten 
and  five-tenths  by  twelve  feet  in  section.  Hid- 
den water  and  obstacles  of  many  kinds  inter- 
fered with  progress,  but  the  engineers  solved 
the  troubles  as  they  arose;  and  at  last,  in  the 
summer  of  1909,  President  Taft,  on  his  first 
trip  to  the  west  after  his  election  to  the  Presi- 
dency, pressed  the  button  which  opened  the 
gates  and  the  Gunnison  river  flowed  across  into 
the  valley  of  the  Uncompaghre. 

One  hundred  and  forty  thousand  acres  of 
fine  land,  which  had  never  appeared  to  have  a 

214 


IRRIGATION 

a  water  supply,  which  lay  under  the  burning 
sun  beside  a  feeble  and  exhausted  river,  sud- 
denly became  available  for  homes,  and  people 
flocked  to  it  in  great  numbers.  The  canals, 
lined  with  concrete,  had  been  created  while 
the  tunnel  was  being  bored;  and  in  1910  the 
desert  of  the  Uncompaghre  began  to  blossom 
under  the  efficient  labor  of  the  long-idle 
Gunnison. 

All  over  the  great  west  this  labor  of  irriga- 
tion is  going  on,  sometimes  alone,  sometimes 
in  combination  with  waterpower,  sometimes 
with  swamp  drainage.  About  Klamath  and 
Tule  lakes,  in  southwestern  Oregon,  an  enor- 
mous irrigation  project  is  under  way  which 
involves  the  draining  of  a  great  area  of  lake  and 
overflow  lands.  In  many  places,  as  in  the 
Tieton  project  in  the  Yakima  Valley,  the  flow 
in  the  natural  stream  has  been  exhausted  by 
previous  work,  and  it  is  necessary  to  create 
storage  for  the  full  amount  of  water  desired 
in  the  new  work,  and  to  use  nothing  but  the 
otherwise  wasted  floods;  yet  this  flood  water 

215 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

is  after  all  the  most  abundant  part  of  the 
supply. 

This  exhausting  of  the  natural  flow,  and  the 
conflict  of  waterpower  and  irrigation  for  the 
use  of  water,  bring  sharply  to  us  the  problem 
of  the  title  to  water  —  water  ownership  — 
which  has  already  created  an  astounding  situ- 
ation in  Oregon,  in  California  and  in  Montana, 
and  which  requires  careful  study  and  a  diffi- 
cult rearrangement  of  many  of  our  laws. 

Most  of  the  problems  of  irrigation  have  been 
solved;  but  the  benefits  are  just  beginning  to 
accrue.  More  than  two  million  acres  have  been 
or  are  being  put  under  water  by  the  Reclama- 
tion Service  alone.  In  Idaho  nearly  as  much 
more  is  being  irrigated  under  the  terms  of  the 
Carey  Act,  and  in  Washington  and  Oregon 
similar  amounts  will  shortly  be  taken  up  under 
Carey  and  private  irrigation  laws  and  turned 
into  homesteads.  If  only  thirty  million  acres 
out  of  the  whole  west  were  so  treated  the  re- 
sult would  be  to  produce  new  homes  for  fifteen 
million  people,  besides  those  who  will  populate 

216 


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IRRIGATION 

the  cities  which  form  the  markets  of  the  irriga- 
tion districts.  And  these  people  are  farmers 
of  a  new  type.  By  the  necessity  of  the  case,  by 
the  intensiveness  of  irrigation  operations  which 
make  ten  acres  frequently  all  a  family  can  oper- 
ate upon,  these  irrigation  farmers  develop 
scientific  methods,  and  become  as  no  other  part 
of  our  population  has  ever  been,  scientific  agri- 
culturists. Living  in  compact  communities, 
they  develop  along  entirely  different  lines  from 
the  settlers  on  the  prairie  whose  homes  were 
often  more  than  a  mile  apart.  Living  in  close 
neighborhood  with  one  another,  in  what  are 
really  extended  villages,  they  have,  owing  to  the 
irrigation,  every  convenience  in  the  way  of  do- 
mestic water,  electric  light  and  the  usual  con- 
veniences of  a  city,  so  that  the  communities  are 
attractive  to  the  city-trained  population.  The 
dwellers  in  them  are  independent.  Each  man  — 
instead  of  investing  his  money  in  some  distant 
corporation  or  insurance  company  which  man- 
ages it  for  him,  invests  it  for  him  and  bears 
the  responsibility  for  it  —  invests  it  in  his  own 

217 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

land  and  in  the  enterprises  of  his  own  town, 
and  is  responsible  for  them.  Individual  respon- 
sibility and  individual  independence  increase 
together.  Compact  settlements  make  for  bet- 
ter education  and  more  frequent  discussion  of 
public  questions;  and  as  a  result  of  this  form 
of  life  we  have  more  active  citizenship,  better 
public  life  and  a  prospect  for  the  highest  devel- 
opment our  form  of  government  and  of  civi- 
lization have  yet  attained ;  and  this  is  the  direct 
result  of  Conservation  of  Water  as  applied 
through  irrigation. 

The  product  of  these  irrigated  lands  are 
destined  to  play  an  important  part  in  the  life 
of  the  nation,  altering  the  national  diet  and 
slowly  but  surely  altering  through  that  the 
home  life  of  the  rest  of  the  nation.  Millions 
of  acres  of  apples  and  other  fruits  have  been 
planted.  The  lands  of  the  Salt  River  project 
produce  astonishing  amounts  of  dates  and 
oranges.  The  staple  products,  wheat,  alfalfa, 
oats,  barley,  etc.,  are  equally  abundant.  And 
it  is  the  abundance  of  these  fruits,  and  of  the 

218 


IRRIGATION 

vegetables  that  are  raised  on  the  same  land, 
that  will  lessen  the  large  meat  item  in  the 
American  diet  and  by  substituting  fruits  and 
vegetables  gradually  tend  toward  a  national 
economy. 


219 


CHAPTER   IX 

CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

In  the  two  years  during  which  it  has  been  a 
public  policy  Conservation  has  brought  for- 
ward an  astounding  mass  of  information  re- 
garding many  subjects  on  which  the  public  was 
previously  totally  uninformed.  Of  these  sub- 
jects none  is  less  known  or  more  important  than 
that  of  the  conservation  and  preservation  of  our 
soil.  Reckless  farming  methods  alone,  by  the 
exhaustion  of  fertility  and  by  permitting  con- 
tinual and  increasing  erosion,  destroy  every 
year  many  times  as  much  as  is  turned  into 
crops;  and  every  river  in  the  land  carries  off 
to  sea  a  vast  amount  of  earth  which  represents 
the  best  part  of  our  heritage. 

The  Mississippi  alone  carries  to  sea  every 
year  enough  finely  divided  silt  —  the  choicest 
alluvium  and  the  most  fertile  part  of  America 

220 


CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

—  to  spread  one  foot  thick  over  350  square 
miles  of  land ;  and  this  amazing  wealth,  repre- 
senting centuries  of  slow  weathering  of  rocks, 
abrasion  by  running  water,  and  accumulation 
of  vegetable  mold,  is  irrevocably  lost,  either 
swept  away  in  the  Gulf  Stream,  or  deposited 
upon  the  bed  of  the  sea.  The  Savannah  and 
the  other  rivers  of  the  eastern  seaboard  run 
deep  red  with  the  stains  of  erosion,  and  the 
Colorado  and  the  other  western  rivers  are 
equally  guilty.  The  total  loss  is  a  billion  tons 
each  year.  The  prevention  of  this  loss  is  a  part 
of  the  work  of  river  control  which  is  directly 
involved  in  navigation;  but  it  is  also  a  special 
part  of  Water  Conservation  itself,  involving  the 
employment  of  our  waterpower,  the  planting 
of  forests  along  the  river  banks  and  the  storage 
of  floods  at  headwaters. 

The  erosion  of  soil  is  a  process  which  has 
been  going  on  from  the  earliest  days  of  the 
solid  earth  and  has  had  a  very  important  part 
in  shaping  the  continent.  When  the  glaciers 
retreated  to  the  north  after  the  last  great  glacial 

221 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

epoch  they  left  behind  them  mud  and  slime,  bare 
rocks,  morains,  refuse  of  all  sorts  gathered  in 
their  slow  advance  or  ground  up  under  their 
tremendous  mass.  The  melting  of  the  retreat- 
ing ice,  the  continual  and  torrential  rains  due 
to  the  great  humidity  of  the  atmosphere,  gath- 
ered up  this  debris  and  swept  toward  the  sea. 
When  the  great  lake  of  the  upper  Mississippi 
burst  its  bounds  and  ate  away  its  outlet  to  the 
Gulf,  this  debris  was  carried  downstream  to 
fill  up  the  entire  alluvial  delta  of  the  river  from 
Cairo,  Illinois,  down  to  the  present  gulf  shore 
line;  and  this  entire  region  of  rich  silt  is  the 
result  of  erosive  process  just  as  it  is  now  the 
chief  victim  of  the  same  process. 

All  over  America  this  process  went  on,  re- 
sulting in  the  wearing  down  of  the  mountains, 
the  leveling  of  the  hills,  the  final  definition  of 
the  great  river  systems,  until  the  forest,  ad- 
vancing over  the  land  on  the  heels  of  the  re- 
treating glaciers,  bound  the  surface  of  the  earth 
with  its  roots  and  stopped  the  destruction. 

When  man  came  and  cut  and  burned  away 
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CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

the  forests  he  released  this  great  destructive 
force  of  nature  again,  and  allowed  the  falling 
water  to  sweep  into  the  sea  the  accumulations 
of  centuries  of  forest  growth.  Nothing  fol- 
lowed more  rapidly  on  the  cutting  away  of  the 
white  pines  of  the  Great  North  woods  than  the 
filling  up  of  the  navigable  channels  of  our 
northern  rivers  with  sand  swept  down  from  the 
deforested  regions.  Lakes  and  ponds  were 
filled  with  it  also,  and  reservoiring  capacity  lost. 
And  nothing  is  checking  this  more  completely 
than  the  work  of  the  Wisconsin  forester,  who 
is  gathering  together  his  scattered  pine  lots 
into  a  compact  and  powerful  forest  army  on  the 
headwaters  of  the  rivers  of  his  state. 

This  destruction  of  the  land  following  the 
cutting  of  the  forest  is  not  a  unique  experience 
for  America.  It  is  a  world-wide  development, 
of  which  Germany  and  France  have  had  their 
turn.  And  we  can  do  no  better  here  than  to 
examine  the  catastrophe  which  befell  France 
when  the  forests  of  the  Savoyan  Alps  were 
destroyed. 

223 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

The  wonderful  mountains  of  the  south  and 
southeast  of  France,  below  Lake  Geneva,  have 
from  the  earliest  times  been  heavily  forested. 
In  the  days  before  the  French  Revolution  these 
forests  were  strictly  protected  by  national  edict. 
But  after  the  revolution  the  destruction  began, 
at  first  in  the  plain,  then  ascending  the  moun- 
tain, as  each  landowner,  fearing  new  changes 
of  government,  attempted  to  turn  his  property 
into  cash. 

Out  of  these  mountains  run  two  important 
streams  and  many  lesser  ones  —  the  two  being 
the  Rhone  and  the  Durance.  The  Rhone  was 
a  navigable  river  of  a  swift  current,  emptying 
into  the  Gulf  of  Lyons;  and  the  Durance 
was  its  chief  tributary.  When  the  forests  were 
cut  away  these  rivers  began  to  receive  increas- 
ing amounts  of  sand  and  gravel,  which  rolled 
along  in  their  currents  and  made  bars  and  ob- 
structions and  rapidly  advanced  the  delta.  For 
nearly  a  century  navigation  of  the  Rhone  was 
practically  impossible.  In  that  hundred  years 
—  and  the  process  is  going  on  to-day  —  it  has 

224 


CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

extended  its  delta  from  the  point  where  it  had 
been  practically  stationary  since  Roman  times, 
out  into  the  deep  water  of  the  Gulf  of  Lyons 
more  than  four  miles,  and  in  that  advance  has 
ruined  the  sea  entrance  to  the  river.  That  four 
miles  represents  the  agricultural  land  of  the 
mountains  swept  down  and  lost  in  the  sea. 

But  the  loss  has  been  far  heavier  than  that. 
All  through  the  mountains  were  little  villages 
which  had  lived  for  centuries  upon  the  products 
of  the  hills.  In  each  village  was  a  waterwheel 
turned  by  a  steadily  flowing  mountain  stream. 
The  villages  were  prosperous  and  contented. 
With  the  destruction  of  the  forests  all  this 
changed.  The  streams  no  longer  flowed  stead- 
ily but  came  in  torrents,  wrecking  the  mills  and 
many  houses,  and  then  going  completely  dry. 
With  the  torrents  came  earth  and  gravel,  so 
that  in  several  cases  villages  have  been  within 
the  past  few  years  entirely  buried  in  the  debris 
brought  down  by  the  flood,  the  business  streets 
being  piled  six  or  eight  feet  deep  in  gravel  and 
bowlders  in  a  single  night. 
15  225 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

Such  destruction  as  took  place  in  the  Alps 
was  repeated  in  the  valley  of  the  Garonne.  All 
along  the  north  slopes  of  the  Pyrenees  the  shep- 
herds burned  the  forests  off  to  increase  the 
pasturage.  Their  hope  was  vain,  for  once  the 
forest  was  gone  the  sandy  soil  quickly  followed 
it.  The  Garonne  became  unmanageable  and  so 
remains,  and  the  sand  swept  out  to  sea  was 
borne  back  by  the  sea  upon  the  Gascogne  coasts 
and  there  piled  in  great  dunes  which  marched 
steadily  inward,  overwhelming  farms  and  vil- 
lages in  sand,  destroying  fields,  blocking  rivers 
and  brooks,  and  finally  turning  the  whole  of 
Gascogny  into  a  marsh,  a  great  unhealthy  terri- 
tory known  as  the  Landes,  where  shepherds 
went  about  on  stilts  to  be  above  the  bogs,  and 
people  died  of  the  ravages  of  malaria  and 
swamp  fever. 

To  remedy  this,  as  to  correct  the  troubles  in 
the  Alps,  France  is  spending  millions  of  dol- 
lars. On  the  headwaters  of  the  Rhone  she  is 
planting  forests,  planting  meadows,  setting  up 
all  manner  of  devices  to  arrest  the  erosion,  and 

226 


CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

most  costly  of  all,  in  the  beds  of  streams 
she  is  building  numberless  masonry  dams  to 
hold  back  not  the  water,  but  the  moving  bed  of 
the  stream  itself.  In  the  delta  of  the  Rhone 
she  is  spending  other  millions  to  make  a  canal 
in  place  of  the  natural  river  mouth  choked  by 
debris.  In  the  upper  Garonne  also  she  is  re- 
planting forests  and  building  the  costly  dams 
to  hold  back  the  mountains.  And  on  the  Gas- 
cogne  coast  she  has  planted  2,000,000  acres  of 
pine  forest  on  the  dunes  to  stop  their  traveling, 
to  permit  the  opening  of  the  drainage  streams 
and  to  aid  the  sanitation  of  the  Landes. 

These  lessons  which  every  country  in  the 
world  can  repeat,  and  which  have  led  the  Swiss 
and  the  Germans  to  develop  their  Protective 
Forests  upon  the  mountainsides,  we  also  have 
had  to  learn  by  hard  experience.  Not  only  in 
the  mountains  but  upon  our  hillsides,  where 
reckless  plowing  by  the  farmer  in  land  which 
should  be  planted  to  grass  or  tree  crops  has 
often  destroyed  an  entire  farming  region. 

We  find  this  on  the  hills  of  northeastern  Ken- 
227 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

tucky,  and  we  find  there  also  a  remarkable  eco- 
nomic revolution  produced  almost  entirely  by 
this  soil  loss  and  the  failure  either  of  individual 
or  government  to  provide  against  it.  Along 
the  Ohio  river  in  the  counties  of  Mason  and 
Bracken  and  their  neighbors,  the  ground  rises 
abruptly  above  the  river,  and  tumbles  south- 
ward and  westward  in  a  very  uneven  but  very 
beautiful  hill  region. 

In  this  region,  about  fifty  years  ago,  the  first 
Kentucky  crops  of  White  Burley  tobacco  began 
to  be  raised,  the  plant  having  been  discovered 
in  Ohio  and  brought  across  the  river.  Burley 
grew  well  on  the  hillsides,  and  paid  good  prices 
—  as  high  as  twenty  cents  a  pound.  In  the 
early  days  a  crop  could  be  grown  every  second 
or  third  year  on  a  given  tract  but  as  the  fertility 
was  exhausted  this  extended  to  every  five  years. 

For  a  long  time  the  Burley  farmers  plowed 
the  hillsides,  even  the  steepest  of  them,  and 
raised  tobacco  on  them.  Every  time  the  hills 
were  plowed  and  the  earth  loosened  the  next 
rainstorm  swept  the  best  elements  of  it  down 

228 


CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

into  some  creek  bottom.  Gradually  the  cultiva- 
tion of  Burley  extended  into  Blue  Grass,  the 
central  counties  of  the  state,  where  the  rich 
bottom  lands  produced  more  than  twice  as  much 
to  the  acre.  The  Blue  Grass  farmers  not  only 
had  more  to  sell  but  they  could  raise  tobacco 
cheaper  and  so  competition  grew  keener  and  the 
hillside  farmer  plowed  his  hillside  oftener  and 
grew  poorer  and  poorer. 

One  may  tramp  over  the  hills  and  drive  over 
the  Kentucky  roads  and  watch  them  strewing 
straw  and  earth  in  a  gully  in  a  vain  effort  to 
stop  the  erosion.  One  may  see  a  wearied  and 
very  poor  farmer,  with  his  wagon  and  mule 
team,  down  in  the  bed  of  the  creek,  shoveling 
into  the  wagon  the  earth  which  the  rain  has 
washed  down,  and  carrying  it  back  on  the  hill- 
sides to  strew  it  again  on  his  land.  Wearisome 
and  little  repaid  toil !  The  next  rain  will  undo 
his  efforts. 

Three  things,  which  the  state  of  Kentucky 
must  initiate,  will  restore  this  soil  and  make 
its  place  permanent  and  will  at  the  same  time 

229 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

advance  the  prosperity  and  contentment  of  the 
landowners.  One  of  these,  which  is  a  custom 
in  all  hilly  countries,  is  the  establishment  of 
terraces  on  the  hillsides  with  proper  drainage, 
so  as  to  check  and  direct  the  running  water. 
This  is  a  tedious  and  expensive  process  which 
properly  carried  out  remains  for  generations 
with  little  repair,  and  which  makes  this  land  till- 
able and  productive. 

The  second  is  the  development  of  forest 
tracts  interspersed  with  meadows  upon  the 
hillsides,  the  production  of  timber  crops  from 
fast-growing  trees,  and  of  cattle  upon  the 
meadows.  The  tobacco  barns  turned  into  cattle 
sheds,  the  fields  into  pasture,  will  bring  new  life 
to  the  hill  counties. 

But  the  third  method  is  even  more  remuner- 
ative and  equally  useful  for  the  prevention  of 
erosion.  It  is  the  substitution  of  fruit  crops 
for  the  tobacco  crops,  a  substitution  for  which 
Kentucky  climate  and  soil  are  admirably  suited. 
Hardy  pecans,  grafted  with  paper  shell  nuts, 
walnuts,  butternuts,  apples,  cherries,  plums 

230 


CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

and  peaches  can  be  grown  there  with  great 
abundance  and  success.  On  the  hillsides  their 
roots  will  consolidate  and  bind  the  soil.  Grass 
grown  beneath  them  will  serve  for  pasturage. 
The  markets  for  the  fruit  are  close  at  hand  and 
pay  good  prices.  And  with  such  soil  conserva- 
tion as  the  state  could  introduce  these  hillside 
farms  would  grow  steadily  richer,  and  pay 
each  year  better  returns  with  an  entire  elimi- 
nation of  the  hard  and  degrading  labor  of 
the  tobacco  field  which  is  now  the  lot  of  the 
farmer. 

This  hillside  erosion  takes  place  in  striking 
extent  all  along  the  fall  line  of  the  Appalach- 
ians, through  the  Carolinas,  Georgia  and  Ala- 
bama, where  the  sandy  red  soil  is  worn  into 
deep  gullies,  destroying  fields  and  farms,  cut- 
ting through  roads,  and  burdening  the  rivers 
with  the  elements  which  are  needed  in  the  cot- 
ton crop.  It  takes  place  on  the  headwaters 
of  the  Tennessee,  where  the  torrential  rivers, 
sweeping  down  from  the  deforested  hills  into 
the  Doe,  the  Nolichucky,  the  French  Broad  and 

231 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

the  Holston,  overwhelm  the  little  bottom  land 
farms  with  gravel,  carry  off  the  thin  soil  which 
the  mountaineers  have  tilled,  and  leave  waste 
and  ruin  where  they  found  contentment  and 
plenty. 

The  worst  example  of  it  all  is  in  the  valley 
of  the  Mississippi  to  which  I  have  referred. 
Throughout  the  entire  course  of  the  running 
water  of  the  Missouri-Mississippi  from  North 
Dakota  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  the  stream  is 
continually  tearing  at  its  banks,  dissolving, 
overwhelming,  undermining.  The  richest  farm 
lands  in  America  line  these  streams,  and  fall 
into  them,  sometimes  an  acre  at  a  time.  Drift- 
ing down  the  Mississippi  I  have  been  aroused 
in  my  boat  by  a  roar  like  a  continual  thunder- 
storm, to  discover,  a  mile  or  so  away,  a  forested 
bank  caving  into  the  river,  the  rich  earth  fall- 
ing away,  the  mighty  trees,  a  century  old, 
crashing  over  one  after  another  into  the  stream. 
I  have  seen  a  mass  of  land  an  acre  in  extent  and 
standing  forty  feet  above  the  level  of  the  water, 
fine  black  soil  all  through,  able  to  produce  more 

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CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

than  a  bale  of  cotton  to  the  acre,  suddenly  and 
without  warning  crack  loose  from  its  neighbor 
and  sink  swiftly  and  noiselessly  beneath  the 
surface  of  the  Mississippi.  Such  slips  occur 
not  occasionally  but  daily  in  a  thousand  places 
on  the  river ;  and  the  result  is  to  shift  the  chan- 
nel, to  endanger  navigation,  and  to  bring  a 
heavy  loss  upon  the  landowners  adjacent  to 
the  stream.  Thousands. of  farmers  have  been 
rendered  homeless  and  poor  by  .this  theft  of 
their  land.  Within  a  few  years  at  Point  Pleas- 
ant, Missouri,  the  Mississippi  has  moved  side- 
ways two  miles,  swallowing  up  a  strip  of  land 
two  miles  wide  and  ten  to  fifteen  miles  long, 
with  all  the  farms,  houses  and  cotton  gins 
which  stood  upon  it.  This  was  rich  and  produc- 
tive land,  capable  of  producing  all  told  probably 
1 5,000  bales  of  cotton  each  year ;  but  it  has  been 
entirely  lost  and  in  place  of  it  the  river  will 
build  up  a  sand  bar,  on  which  it  will  take  a 
century  of  silt-depositing  to  make  land  equal  to 
that  destroyed. 

Of  all  the  soil  loss  in  America  this  from  our 
233 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

river  banks  is  the  most  easily  stopped.  In  order 
to  transform  the  Mississippi  into  an  orderly 
stream  suited  for  navigation  it  is  necessary  to 
fix  its  banks  in  place  so  that  the  water  will 
always  flow  in  the  same  channels.  This  prob- 
lem the  engineers  have  worked  out  in  detail, 
and  for  thirty  years  they  have  been  applying 
the  solution  under  niggardly  appropriations  in 
a  few  scattered  localities.  It  consists  briefly 
in  covering  the  bank  against  which  the  current 
strikes  with  a  mattress  woven  of  willow  brush 
and  galvanized  wire,  which  we  will  describe 
in  the  chapter  on  navigation.  This  mattress 
is  impervious  and  no  earth  can  slip,  slide  or  be 
eroded  from  behind  it. 

Above  low  water  line  the  forty- foot  bank  is 
sloped  back  to  a  gentle  angle  and  covered  a  foot 
deep  in  broken  stone.  This  whole  process  is 
called  revetment,  and  is  the  standard  and  the 
only  method  of  withholding  this  soil  from  the 
river,  of  saving  the  levees  from  destruction,  of 
protecting  the  farmers  and  of  establishing  a 
safe  navigable  channel.  Such  revetment  prop- 

234 


CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

erly  constructed  is  almost  perpetual  and  needs 
very  little  repair  in  the  first  thirty  years  of  its 
existence.  In  a  few  years  the  movement  now 
under  way  will  lead  to  the  construction  of  at 
least  eight  hundred  miles  of  such  work  on  the 
Mississippi  below  Cairo  alone,  and  fully  as 
much  on  the  lower  Missouri. 

Erosion  on  the  hillsides  is  more  difficult  to 
contend  with ;  but  in  the  main  it  can  be  greatly 
reduced  by  the  methods  outlined  for  Kentucky. 
The  steeper  hillsides  should  never  be  plowed, 
and  since  soil  loss  is  a  state  and  national  loss 
the  state  will  some  day  assume  the  right  to  say 
that  they  shall  not  be  plowed.  Then  they  will 
be  planted  to  berries,  to  vines,  to  forests,  to 
orchards,  to  pasture,  or  otherwise  so  conducted 
that  a  vegetable  covering  of  some  sort  shall 
hold  them  intact.  The  real  purpose  of  this  is 
double  —  first  to  bind  firmly  the  surface  of 
the  soil  to  prevent  its  washing  away;  second, 
and  perhaps  more  important,  to  retain  upon  the 
surface  a  soft  mulch  of  absorbent  earth  into 
which  the  rain  will  sink  and  be  absorbed  as  it 

235 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

falls,  instead  of  rushing  swiftly  away  over  the 
surface. 

The  gentler  hills  and  the  rolling  country 
should  be  plowed  along  the  contours,  so  that 
each  furrow  lies  level  and  affords  a  holding 
place  for  floodwater  until  it  sinks  into  the 
ground.  The  plow  and  cultivator  passing 
along  such  furrows  close  the  breaks  in  them 
and  keep  them  tight.  All  through  the  cotton 
country  this  contour  plowing  is  spreading 
with  beneficial  results ;  and  one  may  travel  for 
miles  through  Georgia  and  Alabama  and  see 
everywhere  the  winding  rows  following  in  and 
out  the  curves  of  the  hillsides.  This  work,  how- 
ever, should  be  seconded  by  "  balks  "  or  strips 
of  unplowed  land,  parallel  to  the  furrows  also, 
at  frequent  intervals,  but  left  unplowed  to 
check  the  gullies  that  may  start  and  to  afford 
a  holding  place  for  depositing  the  earth  which 
has  started  to  wash.  Such  balks  in  a  hillside 
maintained  for  several  years  tend  to  form  ter- 
races by  the  gradual  accumulation  of  earth 
upon  them,  and  in  fifteen  or  twenty  years  the 

236 


CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

farmer  finds  his  field  approaching  a  condition 
of  level  benches  following  the  curves  of  the 
hill. 

These  measures,  including  those  of  sylvicul- 
ture above,  are,  after  all,  concerned  with  the 
mechanical  depreciation  of  our  soil;  and  on 
level  ground  they  should  be  supplemented  with 
good  drainage  which  will  keep  the  soil  always 
in  condition  to  hold  and  absorb  rainfall.  But 
there  is  another  sort  of  soil  depreciation  which 
has  already  reduced  the  crop  production  of  the 
country  to  a  remarkable  extent,  and  that  is 
the  over-cropping  without  fertilization.  Every 
field  which  is  planted  continually  in  one  crop 
year  after  year  exhausts  the  elements  which 
produce  that  crop;  or  disturbs  the  balance  of 
elements  in  the  soil  so  it  will  no  longer  yield 
them;  or  sets  up  in  the  soil  some  actively  op- 
posing element,  sometimes  a  plant  poison,  which 
prevents  crops  of  that  character  prospering.  It 
was  this  which  the  Ozark  backwoodsman  had 
in  mind  when,  looking  regretfully  at  the  half- 
acre  clearing  which  had  been  his  only  corn  sup- 

237 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

ply  for  forty  years,  and  in  which  a  few  yellow- 
ish stalks  were  trying  to  grow,  he  said : 

"  That  were  a  good  bit  of  land,  fifty  year 
ago  —  but  she  done  been  corned  to  death." 

From  New  England  to  the  Pacific  coast  there 
is  not  a  state  in  the  Union  in  which  some  land 
has  not  met  the  same  fate.  New  England 
is  filled  with  abandoned  farms,  abandoned 
solely  because  they  would  no  longer  without 
proper  care  produce  the  old  crops  in  abundance. 
New  York  is  filled  with  them,  and  the  abandon- 
ment is  spreading  westward.  But  every  once 
in  a  while  someone  who  knows  comes  to  an 
abandoned  farm  and  by  skillful  cultivation 
turns  it  into  a  magnificent  producer.  In  Illi- 
nois there  are  farms  cultivated  under  the  old, 
shiftless  fashion  which  do  not  produce  over 
twenty  bushels  of  corn  to  the  acre ;  and  imme- 
diately adjacent  to  them  farms  of  no  better  soil, 
but  of  better  management,  which  produce 
seventy-five  to  a  hundred  bushels  of  corn  in 
the  same  area.  Land  in  the  South  is  frequently 
classed  as  "  bumblebee  "  because  it  will  not  pro- 

238 


CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

duce  anything  but  the  scraggly  remnants  called 
by  the  farmer  bumble-bee  cotton;  and  yet  the 
same  land  properly  taken  in  hand  may  be  made 
wonderfully  productive.  There  is,  for  ex- 
ample, at  Rome,  Georgia,  a  school  for  moun- 
tain boys  where  they  are  taught  agriculture. 
To  this  school  come  the  unlettered  mountain- 
eers who  have  never  seen  any  form  of  agricul- 
ture other  than  the  continual  light  plowing 
of  the  hillsides  with  its  swift  erosion,  which 
produces  a  few  bolls  of  cotton  and  a  little  corn 
for  the  mountain  family.  They  come  to  a  school 
which  has  for  its  cotton  fields  abandoned  land 
"  cottoned  to  death  "  before  the  boys  come  to  it; 
and  there  they  are  taught  to  plow  deeply,  to 
stir  up  the  better  elements  below  and  to  return 
the  old  plants  deep  into  the  soil  for  new  nourish- 
ment. They,  are  taught  to  put  on  fertilizer 
suited  to  the  soil,  and  put  it  in  abundantly  — 
and  to  make  the  cattle  barn  provide  this  plant- 
food.  And  as  a  result  they  see  this  abandoned 
and  exhausted  land  returning  every  year  better 
yields,  soon  to  produce  a  bale  to  the  acre,  then 

239 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

to  reach  a  bale  and  a  half,  eventually,  without 
doubt,  to  produce  two  bales  to  the  acre  on  the 
sandy  flat  lands  of  Georgia. 

This  matter  of  the  internal  economy  of  the 
soil  is  one  of  the  least  understood  by  the  farmer, 
by  the  public  and  even  by  scientists.  No  more 
important  work  is  being  carried  on  to-day  in 
our  country  than  that  of  the  Bureau  of  Soils, 
in  the  survey  and  examination  of  the  soils  of 
every  state,  and  the  tests  made  to  determine  the 
action  of  these  soils  under  widely  varying  con- 
ditions. It  has  long  been  a  common  theory  that 
the  plants  were  nourished  on  mineral  constit- 
uents in  the  soil,  and'  that  if  an  abundance  of 
phosphates,  nitrates  and  potash  were  added  to 
it  the  plant  would  select  them  for  food  and  in- 
crease accordingly.  If  an  opposite  result  were 
obtained  (and  it  sometimes  happens  that  the 
wrong  fertilizer  reduces  the  yield  of  a  crop  with 
startling  quickness)  the  farmer  affirmed  that 
it  had1  "  burned  "  the  crop,  and  used  less  next 
time. 

As  a  result  of  this  theory  we  have  been  over- 
240 


CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

whelmed  by  the  prediction  that  our  soils  would 
be  chemically  exhausted  in  something  like  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  and  we  would  then,  as 
a  nation,  starve  to  death  unless  we  found  new 
ground.  Nothing  could  be  more  baseless  than 
such  predictions.  Soil  is  not  merely  a  matter 
of  mineral  elements  to  be  subtracted  by  the 
plant;  it  is  a  dynamic  thing,  a  moving  body, 
continually  alive,  added  to  by  the  winds  and 
the  rain,  moving  about  with  the  running  water, 
disturbed  by  earthworms  and  insects,  aerated 
and  oxygenized  by  plowing  and  cultivating, 
never  remaining  long  in  the  same  condition. 
It  contains  not  only  the  plant-feeding  minerals 
and  many  others,  but  also  a  percentage  of  or- 
ganic matter,  continually  varying  in  nature  and 
in  action.  Over  the  country  at  large  there  is  in 
the  surface  soil  an  average  of  more  than  two 
per  cent  of  organic  matter;  and  this  matter  is 
as  likely  to  be  harmful  as  it  is  to  be  helpful  to 
the  growing  crop.  Part  of  the  work  of  the 
Bureau  of  Soils  consists  in  the  examination  of 
these  organic  elements,  and  the  discovery  of 
16  241 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

which  of  them  are  harmful  and  how  they  can 
best  be  removed  or  counteracted. 

Southern  Illinois  possesses  as  rich  a  soil  as 
one  can  find  anywhere,  heavy  black,  clayey 
loam,  which  requires  strong  underdrainage, 
deep  plowing,  continual  cultivation  to  keep  it 
in  condition.  Instead  of  producing  twenty-five 
to  thirty-five  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre  as 
such  soil  ought,  and  as  it  does  elsewhere,  this 
southern  Illinois  land  produces  on  an  average 
only  about  eleven  bushels  of  wheat.  Examina- 
tion by  the  chemists  found  nothing  lacking  of 
the  so-called  fertile  elements,  but  too  much  or- 
ganic matter  of  an  evil  nature  present.  Owing 
to  the  internal  reactions  the  soil  was  what  is 
called  a  "  sour "  soil,  unsuited  for  growing 
wheat.  Over  its  surface  is  being  spread,  and 
deeply  plowed  in,  finely  powdered  limestone, 
practically  a  lime  flour.  The  effect  of  this  is 
neither  to  add  food  for  the  plants,  nor  to  re- 
lease the  fertile  parts,  but  to  alter  and  better 
the  action  of  the  organic  elements  in  the  soil 
and  so  bring  about  more  favorable  condition 

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CONSERVATION   OF   THE   SOIL 

for  growth.  The  result  of  it  is  to  increase  the 
wheat  yield  to  about  twenty-six  bushels  an  acre. 
This  increasing  of  the  fertility  of  the  soil  is 
not  directly  an  element  in  the  Conservation  of 
Water,  though  it  is  in  the  larger  Conservation. 
But  because  of  the  fact  that  the  amount  of 
water  working  in  the  soil,  the  drainage  and 
cultivation  and  their  effect  upon  the  moisture 
conditions  are  vital  elements  in  the  restoration 
of  the  proper  balance^  of  elements  to  secure 
large  crops,  they  have  a  place  here  also.  The 
measures  which  are  taken  to  correct  the  bad 
conditions  go  hand  in  hand  with  the  measures 
described  earlier  in  this  chapter  for  the  preven- 
tion of  erosion.  As  they  advance  together  in 
the  development  of  a  scientific  farming  which 
shall  take  them  both  into  equal  condition,  the 
loss  of  fertile  parts  of  the  soil  from  washing 
will  diminish  rapidly.  As  it  diminishes  the  bil- 
lion tons  which  now  wash  annually  into  the 
sea  will  steadily  decrease,  and  with  that  de- 
crease will  go  also  a  reduction  in  the  trouble  we 
now  have  in  maintaining  channels  in  our  rivers 

243 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

and  keeping  cut  away  the  bars  at  their  mouths. 
Purer  water  in  the  rivers  will  improve  the 
municipal  supply  and  lessen  the  troubles  of  the 
cities;  and  the  reservoiring  effect  of  the  ter- 
races, the  hillside  groves  and  orchards,  and  the 
deep  plowing  in  the  level  ground  will  have 
an  appreciable  effect  upon  the  high  and  low 
water  regime  of  the  rivers. 


244 


CHAPTER   X 

NAVIGATION 

No  other  method  of  carrying  freight  yet  de- 
vised by  man  compares  in  efficiency  or  economy 
with  stable  and  well-developed  water  trans- 
portation. That  is  true  not  only  on  the  sea,  and 
on  the  Great  Lakes  with  their  deep  channels, 
it  is  also  true  on  rivers  and  even  on  very  shal- 
low rivers.  Though  depth  of  channel  is  an  im- 
portant aid  to  economy,  rivers  less  than  three 
feet  in  depth  can  be  made  to  carry  large  and 
slow  moving  cargoes  at  a  cost  far  below  that 
of  the  railroads. 

In  an  unstable  or  irregular  channel  this  is 
not  possible.  The  elements  which  enter  into 
the  cost  of  transportation  are  the  terminal 
handling  of  freight,  the  operation  and  mainte- 
nance of  the  fleet  and  the  insurance  on  vessel 
and  cargo.  Terminal  docks,  equipped  for  eco- 

245 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

nomic  freight  handling  can  only  be  erected 
where  the  bank  of  the  river  is  stable  and  certain 
not  to  allow  the  heavy  investment  to  slide  into 
the  stream.  A  fleet  to  have  a  low  cost  of  opera- 
tion and  of  maintenance  must  be  entirely  of 
steel,  representing  a  large  original  investment, 
and  such  an  investment  is  only  justified  when 
the  channel  is  sufficiently  stable  and  clear  so 
that  there  is  a  certainty  of  employment  and 
of  safe  journeys  practically  every  day  in  the 
year.  Insurance  on  wooden  vessels  in  an  un- 
stable channel  often  more  than  offsets  —  some- 
times figures  more  than  double  —  the  difference 
between  rail  and  freight  rates.  It  can  only  be 
reduced  to  a  nominal  sum  by  the  use  of  high- 
priced  steel  equipment  and  the  absolute  cer- 
tainty and  stability  of  the  channel. 

A  fixed  and  stable  channel,  therefore,  is  a 
necessity  for  navigation.  It  requires,  besides, 
to  be  of  fairly  normal  flow  having  neither  disas- 
trous floods  nor  prolonged  low  water  seasons. 
Depth  of  water  is  the  final  desideratum.  It  is 
therefore  one  of  the  most  natural  and  impor- 

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NAVIGATION 

tant  departments  of  the  Conservation  of  Water, 
and  we  shall  see  that  it  is  closely  linked  up  with 
every  other  division  of  this  work. 

Rivers  suitable  for  navigation  fall,  in  gen- 
eral, under  one  of  two  classifications,  soft  bot- 
tom and  hard  bottom.  The  Ohio,  during  most 
of  its  course  is  a  hard  bottom  river ;  so  for  a 
considerable  distance,  is  the  upper  Mississippi; 
the  lower  Mississippi  and  most  of  the  Missouri 
are  soft  bottom  rivers.  These  two  sorts  of 
rivers  require  for  their  development  totally  dif- 
ferent local  works  along  the  stream,  but  exactly 
similar  general  works  at  headwaters  and  on  the 
tributaries.  We  will  consider  their  differences 
first  and  their  similarities  later. 

A  hard  bottom  river  is  one  which  has  worn 
its  bed  down  to  the  rock.  Sometimes  it  flows 
gently  in  this  rocky  channel,  sometimes  it  tum- 
bles and  rushes  pell-mell.  Year  after  year  it 
flows  in  the  same  course  with  very  little  change. 
If  it  is  a  gentle  river  of  little  slope  and  abun- 
dant water  it  is  improved  by  what  is  called 
the  "  open  channel  "  method ;  its  channel  is  con- 

247 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

tracted  so  that  at  low  seasons  the  water  is 
confined  to  a  definite  midstream  section  giving 
it  less  surface  and  more  depth.  Rock  and 
other  obstructions  are  removed  and  a  clear  deep 
way  provided.  This  is  the  work  which  has 
been  done  for  many  years  on  the  Ohio,  in  ad- 
vance of  the  lock  and  dam  system  now  being 
installed. 

The  contraction  of  the  channel  is  obtained 
on  the  Ohio,  as  it  is  on  the  Danube  and  on 
many  other  hard  bottom  streams,  by  means  of 
long  lateral  "  dikes,"  ridges  of  stone  high 
enough  to  confine  the  low  water  flow  but  low 
enough  not  to  hinder  the  high  water  discharge. 
These  dikes  are  based  upon  some  rock  upon 
the  shore,  and  extend  out  into  the  stream  at 
an  easy  downstream  curve  as  far  as  seems  de- 
sirable, and1  then  turn  and  parallel  the  thread 
of  the  current  sometimes  for  half  a  mile.  The 
space  back  of  them  segregated  from  the  river 
bed  gradually  fills  with  sediment  in  a  muddy 
river ;  but  in  a  clear  water  stream  often  forms 
a  protective  harbor.  Dredging,  blasting  out 

248 


NAVIGATION 

rock  and  otherwise  making  uniform  tHe  bottom 
of  the  channel  completes  this  "  open  channel " 
method  in  a  hard  bottom  stream.  It  consists, 
so  far  as  the  middle  stage  river  is  concerned, 
in  simply  narrowing  and  clearing  the  trough 
in  which  the  water  runs. 

But  many  rivers  with  hard  bottoms  have 
too  much  slope  to  be  treated  in  this  way.  They 
are  so  steep  that  the  water  runs  down  them 
faster  than  it  is  supplied  and  leaves  them  very 
shallow.  This  is  the  case  with  the  Ohio,  which 
in  the  reach  from  Pittsburg  to  Wheeling  falls 
more  than  a  foot  to  the  mile  and  is  equally  steep 
in  other  short  reaches.  Such  a  river  must  be 
developed  by  the  method  known  as  canalization, 
or  slack-water  navigation;  and  this  method  is 
applied  to  nearly  all  hard  bottom  streams  in 
some  part  of  their  career. 

In  its  simple  terms  canalization  consists 
simply  of  erecting  across  the  river  at  suitable 
intervals  dams  which  hold  back  the  water  from 
the  position  of  one  dam  to  the  foot  of  the  next 
above,  forming  a  pool  in  which  there  is  at  low 

249 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

water  almost  no  current.  This  pool  has  a  sur- 
face elevated  several  feet  above  normal  low 
water  and  therefore  has  a  channel  that  much 
deeper.  At  one  end  of  the  dam  a  short  canal 
is  built  having  in  it  a  lock,  or  a  chamber  of  con- 
crete large  enough  to  hold  a  vessel,  with  gates 
at  each  end,  water  tight,  for  raising  and  lower- 
ing vessels  between  the  different  levels. 

In  a  river  so  equipped  even  a  small  flow  at 
low  water  is  held  in  the  channel  and  preserves 
navigation.  Time  is  lost  in  passing  the  locks, 
but  it  is  regained  in  the  upstream  travel  by  the 
lack  of  opposing  current.  In  a  river  like  the 
Ohio,  however,  which  fluctuates  sixty-five  feet 
vertically  between  high  water  and  low  water,  a 
fixed  dam  standing  across  the  bed,  high  enough 
to  be  of  value  at  low  water  would  begin  to  be  a 
nuisance  as  soon  as  high  water  came.  Until 
the  water  was  high  enough  to  give  full  depth 
for  vessels  over  the  dam  it  would  prevent  their 
passage,  and  even  then  it  would  create  a  dis- 
turbance in  the  channel,  hold  up  the  flood  and 
tend  to  create  a  greater  overflow.  So  there  has 

250 


NAVIGATION 

been  invented  a  movable  or  collapsing  dam  — 
adapted  from  the  French  —  which  obviates  this 
trouble.  This  collapsing  dam  on  the  approach 
of  a  flood  is  thrown  flat  upon  the  bed  of  the 
river  thus  making  the  river  during  the  deep 
water  period  an  open  channel  stream. 

These  collapsing  dams,  of  which  it  is  planned 
to  erect  more  than  fifty  in  the  Ohio,  are  of  sev- 
eral types.  The  Chanoine  Wicket  is  the  com- 
monest of  these,  consisting  of  panels  four  feet 
wide  and  as  high  as  necessary,  standing  upright 
in  a  row  to  form  the  dam,  each  braced  against 
a  prop  in  the  rear.  Withdrawing  the  support- 
ing bar  from  under  these  props,  or  tripping 
them  from  above  lets  each  panel  in  turn  fall 
back  flat  upon  the  river  bottom. 

Another  type  is  the  needle  dam,  such  as  is 
used  in  the  Big  Sandy  river  at  Louisa,  Ken- 
tucky, which  consists  of  a  collapsible  steel 
bridge,  against  which,  when  it  is  erect,  square 
timbers  are  stood  on  end  side  by  side  to  form 
the  dam.  These  square  timbers  are  the 
"needles."  The  flow  of  water  past  such  a 

251 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

dam  is  often  regulated  by  a  "  bear  trap  "  —  a 
sort  of  hinged  flashboard  made  to  rise  or  fall 
at  the  will  of  the  attendant  by  the  pressure  of 
water  above  it,  and  as  it  rises  or  falls  lessening 
or  increasing  the  flow  of  water  through  the 
spill-way. 

These  dams  are  excellent  for  navigation; 
but  they  are  absolutely  useless  for  the  develop- 
ment of  power.  They  are  not  tight.  Much 
water  escapes  through  them.  And  owing  to  the 
fact  that  they  only  stand  at  odd  intervals  of 
low  water  they  will  not  produce  any  steady  and 
marketable  power  which  will  pay  for  equipping 
them  with  turbines  and  generators. 

Considered  therefore  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  Conservation  of  Water  such  dams  are  a 
failure  —  a  makeshift.  And  that  is  what  we 
find  them  to  be.  So  long  as  the  floods  persist, 
so  long  as  the  Ohio  is  permitted  to  range  from 
a  mere  drivel  to  a  destructive  torrent  seventy 
feet  deep,  and  to  overflow  cities  and  farms,  de- 
stroy mills  and  stocks  of  goods,  end  commerce 
during  the  floods  and  prevent  the  development 

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NAVIGATION 

of  power — so  long  these  dams  will  be  required. 
But  when  actual  Conservation  begins  to 
preserve  the  valley  from  floods,  to  maintain  a 
steady  river,  to  develop  the  power  and  to  reduce 
soil  erosion  —  when  these  things  are  done  and 
the  Ohio  is  normalized,  a  concrete  dam  will 
replace  each  of  these,  a  power  house  will  stand 
beside  it,  and  the  Ohio  from  a  drain  on  the  na- 
tional treasury  will  become  a  liberal  contributor 
to  it.  We  will  return  to  this  later. 

Soft  bottom  rivers  are  of  two  principal  sorts. 
The  Illinois,  for  an  example  of  one  sort,  is  a 
very  soft  bottom  river  which  holds  its  banks 
firm  and  maintains  year  after  year  the  same 
stable  depth.  It  has  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
an  equal  for  its  stability  and  uniform  behav- 
ior. It  can  be  dredged  and  the  dredged  chan- 
nel continues  at  the  new  depth.  The  banks 
and  the  current  seem  to  have  reached  an 
agreement  by  which  neither  interferes  with  the 
other. 

The  very  opposite  is  true  of  the  Mississippi. 
Its  banks  are  built  of  friable  alluvial  soil,  and  its 

253 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

current  is  swift  and  powerful.  Consequently 
the  Mississippi  below  Cairo,  in  every  bend, 
tears  at  and  devours  its  banks  almost  continu- 
ally. Sometimes  the  soil  falls  in  by  hatfuls, 
sometimes  by  acre  slices,  as  we  have  seen  in 
the  chapter  on  soil  preservation. 

This  earth  which  the  river  picks  up  so  avidly 
and  which  it  steals  from  the  riverside  farmer, 
it  carries  but  a  little  way  and  drops  in  the  next 
crossing  —  where  the  current  moves  from  one 
side  of  the  river  to  the  other.  Dropping  it  in 
the  crossing  forms  a  bar,  which  obstructs  the 
river  and  changes  its  course,  and  sets  it  to  tear- 
ing out  its  banks  in  a  new  place.  As  a  result  it 
is  continually  in  motion,  shifting  its  channel  and 
obstructing  navigation  with  new  bars.  These 
movements,  however,  are  more  or  less  system- 
atic, so  that  there  are  below  Cairo  only  about 
twenty  bad  bars  which  give  trouble  to  naviga- 
tion, while  in  the  bends  which  constitute  most 
of  the  river  the  water  is  from  fifty  to  one  hun- 
:dred  and  seventy-five  feet  deep. 

It  is  perfectly  evident  that  in  a  river  which 
254 


NAVIGATION 

shifts  its  channels,  changes  and  creates  bars 
and  caves  its  banks,  neither  stable  terminal 
docks,  nor  a  secure  navigable  channel  can  be 
maintained  without  some  radical  development. 
This  development  we  have  already  considered 
as  a  measure  of  saving  the  soil.  It  is  the  revet- 
ment of  the  banks.  In  every  bend  there  must 
be  placed  a  brush  revetment.  Willows  cut  from 
the  numerous  towheads,  in  which  they  grow  in 
rank  abundance,  are  cut  when  they  are  about 
twenty  feet  tall,  and  are  brought  in  boatloads 
to  the  scene  of  operation.  There  they  are  made 
into  bundles  called  fascines,  each  about  two  feet 
in  diameter,  and  by  means  of  galvanized  wire 
cables  these  fascines  are  stoutly  woven  into  a 
mattress,  the  cables  beng  used  as  weaving 
threads,  the  willows  as  the  cross  threads.  If 
a  grass  or  rush  carpet  could  be  viewed  under 
a  gigantic  magnifying  glass  it  would  appear 
like  one  of  these  fascine  mattresses.  Lying 
upon  the  surface  of  the  river  when  completed 
they  are  often  three  hundred  feet  wide  and  a 
thousand  feet  long,  the  inner  edge  lying  on  such 

255 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

a  line  that  if  the  river  were  at  dead  low  water 
it  would  be  exactly  on  the  shore  line  —  called 
in  river  work  the  zero  contour.  When  it  is 
thus  completed  the  mattress  is  loaded  with  rub- 
ble stone  and  sunk  against  the  under  water 
bank,  where  it  lies  like  a  blanket,  protecting  the 
soil  from  the  action  of  the  current.  No  earth 
whatever  can  be  drawn  out  through  such  a  cov- 
ering, and  on  the  contrary  the  river  fills  the  in- 
terstices with  silt  so  that  it  becomes  a  solid  mass 
and  imbedded  in  the  bank.  There  it  will  re- 
main practically  perpetually  without  alteration 
or  repair  except  in  the  case  of  some  unforeseen 
accident  such  as  a  vessel  dropping  anchor  into 
it.  It  holds  the  bank  exactly  in  place  and  keeps 
the  river  in  a  steady  channel  so  that  the  bar 
in  the  crossing  below  the  bend  is  scoured  out 
and  the  channel  deepened. 

When  the  mattress  has  sunk  into  place  hy- 
draulic graders  come  into  play  and  the  vertical 
bank  overhead  is  sloped  back  about  three  feet 
horizontal  to  one  vertical  so  that  the  forty  foot 
rise  has  about  a  hundred  and  twenty  feet  of 

256 


NAVIGATION 

surface.  This  is  then  covered  a  foot  deep  in 
rubble  stone,  the  place  where  it  joins  the  mat- 
tress is  well  reenforced,  and  the  task  is  done. 
Thenceforth  that  bend  will  remain  stable,  and 
the  farmer  on  the  bank  above  can  be  certain 
that  the  river  will  not  take  his  farm. 

Even  if  we  had  no  care  for  navigation  what- 
ever, even  if  we  did  not  intend  to  run  a  ship 
or  to  carry  a  cargo,  this  revetment  would  be 
absolutely  essential,  and  we  would  be  compelled 
to  create  it  to  save  our  rich  farming  land  in 
the  bottoms.  It  is  to  cost  all  told,  systematically 
carried  on  from  Cairo  to  the  sea,  something 
between  $75,000,000  and  $90,000,000  to  which 
Congress  now  appropriates  $4,000,000  a  year 
beginning  in  1910.  When  it  is  done  the  flood 
levees  will  be  advanced  to  the  river's  edge  (for 
the  further  benefit  of  navigation)  and  the  crops 
produced  on  the  protected  land  will  every  year 
more  than  repay  the  entire  sum  spent  on  the 
wbrk. 

This  revetment  work  is  the  necessary  work 
for  producing  a  channel  in  the  lower  Missis- 

17  257 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

sippi.  When  it  is  all  done  the  river  from  Cairo 
to  the  sea  will  be  automatically  deepened  at  all 
points  to  twenty  feet,  and  the  navigation  will 
be  certain  and  stable.  But  after  all  it  is  only 
a  makeshift  too,  like  the  temporary  dams  on 
the  Ohio.  The  caving  of  the  banks  is  due 
largely  to  the  constant  fluctuations  in  the  speed 
and  level  of  the  water.  Banks  soaked  in  flood 
time  fall  of  their  own  weight  as  the  water 
leaves  them ;  and  bars  filled  in  during  the  flood 
upset  the  low  water  channel  and  cause  the  river 
to  devour  its  banks.  For  further  stability  of 
navigation  and  to  remove  the  cause  of  the 
trouble  we  must  eventually  keep  the  river  below 
the  bankful  stage.  Reservoiring  the  Ohio  will 
do  most  of  this,  for  the  Ohio  is  the  greatest 
flood  producer  of  the  system.  But  the  Missouri, 
the  upper  Mississippi  and  the  other  tributaries 
must  be  reservoired  as  well  to  produce  the  com- 
bined effect. 

These  methods  which  I  have  described  here 
apply  in  larger  or  smaller  degree  to  every  river 
in  America.  Now  let  us  see  what  we  get  from 

258 


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NAVIGATION 

them  and  how  we  extend  them,  aside  from  this 
protection  by  revetment. 

The  reservoir  system  for  navigation  must 
consist  of  great  storage  basins  at  headwaters, 
and  of  forested  hillsides  above  the  reservoirs  — 
and  we  find  this  is  the  same  storage  of  water, 
the  same  Water  Farms  which  are  essential  for 
the  development  of  power,  for  flood  protection, 
for  municipal  supply  and  for  irrigation.  They 
require  no  additional  quantity  for  navigation, 
no  alteration  in  operation,  no  change  or  addi- 
tional expense  whatever.  But  let  us  see  what 
they  will  return  on  the  Ohio.  This  river  has  a 
total  available  fall  which  can  be  transformed 
into  power  of  nearly  500  feet.  It  has  an  average 
flow  of  158,000  second  feet.  If  we  sufficiently 
normalize  the  flow  on  that  part  of  the  river 
above  the  Tennessee  to  secure  a  constant  dis- 
charge of  40,000  second  feet  so  that  that 
amount  could  be  made  the  basis  for  power  de- 
velopment, we  would  have  at  fifty  fixed  dams, 
of  ten  foot  head  each,  1,800,000  electric  horse- 
power —  and  it  is  certain  that  the  river  could 

259 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

be  normalized  to  80,000  second  feet  so  as  to 
produce  not  less  than  3,500,000  horsepower. 
Figuring  only  on  the  first  estimate  the  power 
is  worth  at  the  lowest  wholesale  prices,  nearly 
$50,000,000  a  year. 

We  have  spent  on  the  Ohio  more  than 
$40,000,00  and  we  propose  to  spend  twice  that 
hereafter  in  completing  a  system  of  movable 
dams  which  will  give  us  a  navigable  channel 
but  no  other  return  whatever  and  which  will 
still  be  subject  to  floods  and  droughts.  But 
here  we  have  Conservation  applied  to  the  same 
channel.  If  we  issue  bonds  for  the  work  to  be 
repaid  over  a  long  period,  and  if  we  employ 
those  bonds  to  create  storage  what  will  be  the 
result? 

Let  us  assume  that  the  Ohio  has  no  water  at 
all  during  low  periods  and  that  through  four 
months  in  the  year  we  must  create  a  river  of 
40,000  second  feet  simply  by  releasing  the 
water  from  reservoirs.  That  will  require 
335,000,000,000  cubic  feet  of  water  stored  in 
the  mountains  —  nearly  four  times  as  much  as 

260 


NAVIGATION 

we  have  stored  now  in  the  Mississippi.  But 
this  amount  is  not  enough,  for  there  are  some 
years  of  double  floods  and  some  of  longer 
droughts.  We  must  nearly  double  it  —  to 
6oo,ocx),ooo,ooo.  Storage  on  the  Mississippi 
cost  $14  per  million  feet.  A  good  average  price 
for  expensive  storage  on  the  Ohio  would  be 
$100.  But  let  us  double  this  and  go  at  a  very 
high  price,  and  estimate  the  cost  at  $200  per 
million  feet.  It  would  be  but  $120,000,000  for 
a  protection  from  floods  which  would  save  the 
Ohio  Valley  ten  to  twenty  million  dollars  every 
year.  Then  we  must  erect  fifty  concrete  dams 
and  the  adjacent  power  houses  at  $4,000,000 
each  —  which  will  cost  us  $200,000,000.  Alto- 
gether this  involves  less  money  than  the 
Panama  Canal,  but  unlike  the  latter  it  pays  its 
own  way.  We  have  spent  but  $320,000,000 
and  we  need  to  add  but  $50,000,000  to  this  for 
the  electric  distributing  system  and  all  that  goes 
with  it,  and  we  shall  have  our  waterpower  re- 
turning big  dividends  to  the  natidh. 

Instead  of  expending  $100,000,000  with  no 
261 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

return  for  a  navigable  channel,  and  still  suffer- 
ing from  floods,  Conservation  proposes  that  we 
shall  invest  five  times  as  much  —  the  equivalent 
of  the  cost  of  the  Panama  Canal  —  for  a  bigger 
work,  avoid  the  floods,  increase  municipal  sup- 
ply, prevent  soil  erosion,  save  the  power  and 
have  an  income,  gross,  of  13  per  cent,  net  of 
probably  9  per  cent  on  the  money  invested,  to 
retire  the  bonds. 

We  are  dealing  in  big  figures,  but  with  a 
big  subject.  Hamburg  in  Germany  has  spent 
$100,000,000  on  its  harbor.  Bremen  has  spent 
nearly  as  much.  We  have  ourselves  spent 
$250,000,000  on  the  Mississippi  system  simply 
working  at  it  in  the  old-fashioned  back-handed 
manner  which  spent  the  money  for  navigation 
alone  without  return  and  gave  away  the  by- 
products. Now  we  propose  to  spend  the  money 
on  other  things  that  pay  big  dividends,  and  let 
the  navigation  come  as  a  byproduct  of  them  all. 
Let  us  apply  this  method  to  the  greatest  of 
American  waterway  projects  and  see  where  it 
brings  us  and  what  we  have  already  accom- 

262 


NAVIGATION 

plished.  I  refer  to  the  Lakes-to-the-Gulf  chan- 
nel, the  route  for  ships  from  Chicago  to  New 
Orleans  which  it  is  proposed  shall  be  at  first 
fourteen  and  later  twenty  feet  in  depth. 

This  channel  begins  in  Chicago  with  the 
Sanitary  Canal.  That  canal  has  cost  Chicago 
all  told  nearly  $60,000,000  and  when  it  is  in  full 
operation  it  will  return  from  waterpower 
$750,000  yearly,  from  rentals  along  the  bank 
not  less  than  $1,000,000  (rentals  made  possible 
by  the  deep  waterway)  and  eventually  $2,000,- 
ooo.  Its  sanitary  value  to  Chicago  alone,  in 
the  reduction  of  the  death  rate  has  made  it 
money  well  spent. 

The  next  section  is  a  drop  from  the  end  of  the 
Sanitary  Canal  to  Utica,  a  fall  of  more  than  a 
hundred  feet.  In  this  reach  more  than  100,000 
electric  horsepower  can  be  developed  and  Illi- 
nois has  voted  to  spend  $20,000,000  on  the  con- 
servation of  this  waterpower  for  the  use  of  the 
state,  the  navigable  channel  being  a  byproduct. 
The  waterpower  will  return  not  less  than 
$2,500,000  annually  to  the  state,  first  paying  off 

263 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

the  bonds,  then  giving  her  a  surplus  for  other 
improvements. 

The  reach  from  Utica  to  Cairo  will  involve 
three  great  dams,  one  at  Alton  and  two  below 
St.  Louis.  Each  of  these  will  generate  200,000 
electric  horsepower  and  the  total  result  will  be 
power  worth  about  $16,000,000  a  year,  to  repay 
channel  and  electrical  construction  of  not  over 
$100,000,000.  The  reach  from  Cairo  to  the  sea 
we  have  already  considered. 

So  here  we  have  a  magnificent  illustration  of 
the  Conservation  of  Water  in  which  the  several 
elements,  waterpower,  flood  protection  and  soil 
protection  are  the  principal  parts  of  the  work; 
and  return  liberal  dividends ;  while  the  navi- 
gable channel  is  a  free  gift  to  the  people  of  the 
nation. 

This  is  the  new  idea  of  navigation.  It  came 
upon  the  engineers  suddenly  when  President 
Roosevelt  proposed  his  great  doctrine  of  Con- 
servation. But  it  is  bound  to  sweep  through 
the  country.  And  it  is  certain  that  there  will 
be  no  more  granting  of  waterpower  privileges 

264 


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NAVIGATION 

in  navigable  streams,  no  more  alienating  of 
power-sites  when  the  idea  has  become  estab- 
lished ;  but  that  these  public  works  shall  be  car- 
ried out  as  public  enterprises  and  the  returns 
flow  into  the  Treasury. 

We  have  devoted  much  space  to  the  Missis- 
sippi system.  On  the  Columbia  where  the  in- 
terests of  Irrigation,  Power  and  Navigation 
are  all  bound  up  together  with  the  problem 
of  storage,  and  Conservation,  we  could  point 
even  a  more  brilliant  example.  The  Tennessee, 
the  Coosa  —  remarkably  so,  the  Coosa  —  the 
Peedee  and  the  other  rivers  of  the  seaboard,  the 
Hudson  on  which  the  state  of  New  York  is 
planning  tremendous  storage  —  all  of  them 
offer  the  same  opportunity  and  the  same  results. 
In  the  end  every  one  of  these  rivers  and  every 
little  river  in  the  land  will  be  improved  from 
the  Conservation  standpoint,  and  not  from  that 
of  navigation.  But  navigation  will  be  the  sure 
result. 

Navigation  means  not  only  saving  and  econ- 
omy at  home,  it  means  the  easy  invasion  of  for- 

265 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

eign  markets.  ^  To  the  farmer  in  Dakota  it 
means  five  to  twelve  cents  more  for  every  bushel 
of  wheat,  the  saving  in  seaboard  freight  by 
water  down  the  Mississippi  will  be  fully  that 
when  the  river  is  improved.  That  means  $300 
to  $500  clear  gift  to  every  farmer  of  a  quarter- 
section  every  year.  The  manufacturer  will 
reach  his  customers  more  easily.  The  burden 
of  coal  and  lumber  taken  up  by  water  will  re- 
lease railway  cars  for  better  freights ;  and  cheap 
fuel  and  cheap  raw  material  (and  abundant 
waterpower)  will  stimulate  and  increase  manu- 
facturing. That  is  what  makes  a  nation  pros- 
perous. That  is  what  gives  us  opportunity  to 
reach  South  America  and  the  Orient.  It  is  as  if 
instead  of  leaving  Panama  finished  at  the  Isth- 
mus we  extended  it  up  into  practically  every 
state  in  the  Union  so  that  cargoes  from  little 
inland  towns  could  go  to  it  as  freely  as  they 
go  from  Mannheim  on  the  Rhine  or  from  Bres- 
lau  on  the  Oder  —  or  from  New  Orleans  or 
New  York. 


266 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE  RESULTS  OF  THE  CONSERVATION  OF  WATER 

We  have  come  the  whole  road  now,  from  the 
first  establishment  of  the  Water  Farm,  through 
the  several  processes  of  swamp  drainage,  irri- 
gation, the  development  of  power,  the  revet- 
ment of  the  bank,  the  purification  of  the  rivers, 
the  establishment  of  navigation,  the  conserva- 
tion of  the  soil,  to  the  full  accomplishment  of 
the  best  use  of  water.  Let  us  look  about  us  and 
see  into  what  sort  of  a  country  the  journey  has 
led  us. 

Truly  it  has  brought  us  into  a  beautiful  land. 
We  enter  it  at  the  sea  gate,  at  the  mouth  of  a 
great  river,  where  we  find  a  port  bustling  with 
commercial  activity.  Magnificent  stone  quays, 
lined  with  great  steamships,  equipped  with 
powerful  machinery,  and  provided  with  hand- 

267 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

some  warehouses,  —  these  greet  the  eye.  Back 
of  them  lies  the  Gate  City,  fronting  the  river 
above  the  port  with  beautiful  parks,  grassy  and 
well  wooded.  The  air  is  clear  and  free  from 
smoke,  the  walls  of  the  buildings  are  white  and 
clean,  the  trees  are  green  and  fresh.  It  is  a  far 
cry  from  the  smoky,  grimy,  unkempt  city  of 
to-day. 

"  Magnificent  docks !  "  So  you  cry.  "  But 
what  an  amazing  expense!  How  can  the 
people  bear  such  taxes  ?  " 

"  No  expense  at  all,"  replies  the  citizen. 
"  We  have  conserved  our  river  and  it  is  now 
steadily  navigable.  Therefore  we  have  an 
enormous  commerce.  Bonds  for  enough  money 
to  build  our  port,  extended  over  a  long  period  of 
years,  are  repaid  by  a  light  charge  on  the  in- 
creasing traffic.  This  is  part  of  our  reward 
for  taking  care  of  our  running  water." 

"  But  why  is  the  city  smokeless  ?  Have  you 
no  manufactures  ?  " 

''  We  manufacture  for  the  export  trade  in 
great  quantities  —  but  the  power  all  comes  by 

268 


RESULTS 

wire  from  the  dams  which  make  the  river 
navigable." 

So  we  go  on,  wondering,  through  this  beauti- 
ful city.  At  every  point  we  stop  to  exclaim  and 
admire  the  public  buildings,  and  we  learn  that 
they,  too  are  a  gift  from  conservation,  paid  for 
out  of  the  public  income  from  the  services  of 
water.  We  drive  to  the  dock  to  take  a  passen- 
ger steamboat  for  the  interior,  and  find  this,  too, 
a  public  dock,  as  well  equipped  as  the  best  rail- 
way station.  A  handsome  steel  steamboat 
awaits  us  and  carries  us  up  the  river. 

As  we  advance  into  the  interior  our  wonder 
grows.  The  water  of  the  stream  is  limpid  and 
clear.  The  banks,  gently  sloped,  are  faced  with 
white  stone  in  the  swifter  bends,  but  in  the  other 
parts  are  covered  with  rich  green  turf.  On 
each  side  the  banks  are  well  curved  and  regular, 
and  there  is  a  total  absence  of  the  old  time  hor- 
ror of  caving  land,  of  snags  and  overhanging 
tree-roots,  of  sandbars  and  wasted  land.  In- 
stead the  regular  channel  is  fronted  with  rich 
and  well  tended  farms  and  occasional  groups 

269 


THE   CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

of  trees,  and  the  land  is  crossed  by  fine  roads 
bordered  by  rows  of  shade  trees. 

"  What  has  brought  all  this  about?  "  you  ask 
in  wonder.  The  answer  is  always  the  same. 
Protection  of  the  soil  by  revetment,  proper 
regulation  of  the  channel,  these  have  estab- 
lished and  perfected  the  river.  Water  Farm- 
ing which  has  put  an  end  to  floods,  has  stopped 
the  caving  of  the  banks  and  made  the  lands  on 
the  bank  magnificent  home  sites.  The  example 
of  the  carefully  tended  river  has  made  the 
people  more  careful  with  roads  and  land.  Stone 
brought  down  from  riverside  quarries  has  made 
cheap  roads,  and  careful  tillage  and  conserva- 
tion of  the  soil  has  made  a  small  farm  sufficient 
for  a  family ;  so  that  we  have,  as  we  see,  practi- 
cally a  continuous  village  stetching  along  the 
river,  like  an  extended  irrigation  town.  The 
swamps  are  drained,  the  overflow  has  ceased, 
the  forests  are  cleared  or  brought  into  the  con- 
dition of  a  tree-garden ;  dilapidation  has  given 
way  to  perfection. 

City  after  city  as  we  pass  it  presents  the 
270 


RESULTS 

same  condition  of  cleanliness,  the  same  rows 
of  magnificent  docks  well  equipped  to  handle 
traffic,  the  same  freedom  from  smoke,  the 
same  elaborate  public  buildings  and  parks 
— the  people,  the  same  appearance  of  prosperity 
and  contentment  that  we  saw  in  the  Gate  City. 
Up  and  down  the  river  move  continuously  fleets 
of  barges,  fast  package  freight  boats,  fast  pas- 
senger steamboats,  all  moving  swiftly,  all 
smokeless  —  for  the  care  of  fuel  has  advanced 
with  the  care  for  water  —  and  all  of  new  types, 
developed  since  reliability  developed  in  the  river 
channel. 

Commerce  with  all  the  world  is  plying  in 
these  barges  to  be  interchanged  at  the  Gate 
City.  For  the  easy  manufacturing  made  pos- 
sible by  cheap  and  abundant  waterpower;  the 
facile  transportation  furnished  by  the  deep  and 
stable  channels;  the  rapid  and  economical  in- 
terchange at  the  Gate  City  made  possible  by 
electric  power  and  efficient  public  docks  —  all 
these  make  plain  and  smooth  the  road  from  the 
factories  in  the  interior  to  the  ports  of  South 

271 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

America,  of  Africa  and  Asia,  and  of  all  Europe. 
American  goods,  and  with  them  American 
ideas,  are  going  out  through  all  these  channels 
to  the  world.  These  points  here  where  the  fac- 
tories stand,  these  manufacturing  centers  be- 
side the  waterways,  these  are  the  strategic 
vantage  points  of  American  idealism.  Free- 
dom, intelligent  liberty  —  these  things  and 
American  humanity  go  out  into  the  world  with 
commerce,  from  these  water-driven  mills.  And 
their  progress  like  that  of  commerce  is  facili- 
tated and  made  easily  possible  by  the  Water 
Farms  we  have  established. 

We  come  at  last  to  a  dam  erected  across  the 
river.  Over  the  crest  of  it  a  thin  film  of  surplus 
water  falls  in  a  lovely  cascade,  but  not  enough 
to  hide  the  dam  itself,  which  is  coped  with  hand- 
some stone  work  and  finished  as  carefully  as  if 
it  were  an  ornamental  work  in  a  public  park. 
At  one  side  are  the  locks  for  vessels  —  a  long, 
wide  lock,  100  by  1000  feet,  through  which  a 
whole  fleet  of  barges  can  pass  at  a  time;  be- 
side it  a  lock  75  by  500  for  passing  through 

272 


RESULTS      * 

the  swift  packet  and  passenger  boats.  At  the 
other  side,  incorporated  into  the  dam  is  the 
power  house,  a  white  concrete  structure  built 
low  upon  the  dam,  with  its  red-tile  roof  furnish- 
ing an  element  of  contrast  that  brightens  the 
scene.  The  lock  walls  are  surrounded  by  a 
grassy  park,  filled  with  trees.  There  is  not  a 
break  in  the  perfection  of  the  channel  work. 
Below  the  dam  on  one  side  is  a  row  of  docks 
equipped  with  handling  machinery,  and  a  group 
of  mills,  flanked  by  a  small  residence  section  of 
concrete,  working-men's  houses,  each  sur- 
rounded by  its  grass  plot  —  one  of  the  new 
manufacturing  villages  with  water  transporta- 
tion and  electric  power  to  free  it  from  the  thral- 
dom of  the  railway  and  the  city. 

Passing  through  the  dam  and  advancing 
steadily  upstream,  past  flourishing  cities  and 
villages,  under  permanent  and  handsome  stone 
and  concrete  bridges,  past  scenery  of  many 
kinds  —  rocky  cliffs,  rounded  hills,  and  broad, 
gentle  valleys  —  we  go ;  and  nowhere  do  we 

see   the   erosion   of  gullies   showing,   or   the 
.8 


THE    CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

cutting  of  a  bank,  nor  do  we  see  the  flimsy 
frame  houses  of  the  swamp  days  with  their 
sides  marked  by  the  annual  flood  line.  All 
that  has  disappeared,  and  a  well  devel- 
oped country  of  small  farms,  well  tilled,  and 
handsome  farm  residences  has  taken  its 
place. 

Something  more  we  notice ;  for  the  machines 
which  are  gathering  in  the  corn,  the  plows 
which  are  preparing  the  ground  for  the  winter 
wheat  are  all  four-wheeled  structures  driven  by 
electricity.  No  horses  are  in  sight  in  the  fields, 
but  instead  the  farmer's  engineer  rides  upon  the 
machine,  to  which  a  wire  leads  from  a  trolley 
along  the  side  of  the  field,  carrying  current 
from  the  power  house  we  have  passed  down  the 
river.  The  houses  on  the  farms  have  chimneys, 
for  the  old-fashioned  wood  fire  in  the  living 
room  is  within  every  one's  reach  now  that  the 
forests  are  cared  for  at  headwaters  and  fire- 
wood brought  down  thence  and  from  the 
protected  hillsides  close  at  hand.  But  if  we 
leave  the  boat  and  inspect  the  farm  we  find 

274 


RESULTS 

everything  else  done  by  this  electric  power 
—  the  housewife  ironing  and  cooking  and 
heating  water  with  it,  the  farmer  not  only 
plowing  but  churning,  milking  the  cows,  cut- 
ting stalks  for  the  silo  and  hoisting  them  in, 
lighting  the  house  and  barns,  and  operating 
his  passenger  car  and  his  freight  wagons 
with  it. 

"  If  we  leave  the  boat,"  I  said ;  and  the 
landing  where  we  leave  it  is  itself  well  worth 
our  observation.  For  the  farmers  in  a  con- 
siderable territory  in  order  to  avail  themselves 
of  water  transportation,  have  made  a  service 
of  fine  roads  reaching  out  and  back  for  several 
miles  and  converging  on  a  single  point  on  the 
river  bank.  There  they  have  established  a 
landing  dock,  with  machinery  for  taking  off 
their  produce  and  for  delivering  the  things  they 
have  ordered  from  city  and  factory,  and  there 
they  meet  the  river  barges  with  their  farm 
motor-wagons  in  an  economical  transfer  of 
freight. 

Wagons,  carriages,  dock  machines,  plows, 
275 


THE   CONSERVATION   OF   WATER 

are  driven  by  the  white  coal  which  we  have 
secured  at  headwaters. 

We  find  paper  mills  and  furniture  factories 
beside  the  river,  and  factories  turning  limestone 
and  coke  into  nitrates  for  the  soil,  and  all  these 
are  products  of  Conservation,  the  power  from 
the  river,  the  wood  from  the  protective  forests 
at  headwaters.  And  at  last,  transferred  to  a 
smaller  steamboat  as  we  approach  headwaters, 
we  pass  through  a  pair  of  locks  which  lift  us 
seventy  feet  through  a  beautiful,  lofty,  curved 
stone  dam  into  the  first  of  the  reservoirs  upon 
the  main  stream. 

Here  we  are  in  the  playground  of  the  valley 
—  such  a  summer  playground  as  every  river 
in  America  now  has.  It  is  the  first  of  the  Water 
Farms,  a  beautiful  body  of  clear  water,  sur- 
rounded by  hills  covered  with  a  green  and 
well-kept  forest.  The  shore  line  grassy  from 
the  water's  edge  to  the  trees,  is  marked  by  fre- 
quent landings,  and  if  we  were  to  land  at  one 
and  follow  the  path  that  leads  from  it  it  would 
take  us  to  a  log  cabin,  a  bungalow,  or  a  cottage 

276 


THE  RHONE,  A  WELL-ORDERED  RIVER 


THE  RHONE,  A  WELL-ORDERED  RIVER 
When  the  banks  of  a  river  have  been  fixed  to  prevent  erosion, 
they  can  be  surmounted  by  stone  walls  to  keep  back  the  small  floods 
which  still  persist,  and  made  orderly  and  beautiful.     This  is  typical 
of  the  well-kept  rivers  of  France. 


When  we  have  followed  Conservation  to  its  full  development, 
have  purified  and  regulated  our  rivers,  reservoired  them  against 
floods,  improved  their  channels,  and  revetted  their  banks  to  prevent 
erosion,  this  is  what  we  may  expect  to  see  —  graceful,  curving  chan- 
nels, navigable,  beautiful,  bordered  with  grass  and  trees,  or  with 
handsome  and  smokeless  cities,  adding  to  the  fascination  both  of 
traveling  on  and  of  dwelling  by  them. 


RESULTS 

in  the  woods  not  far  from  the  shore  —  a  private 
summer  home  built  upon  this  public  ground  (or 
upon  private  ground,  though  we  may  believe 
that  most  of  this  is  state  forest  reserve)  and 
paying  a  ground  rental  of  but  five  dollars  a 
year  to  the  state.  If  we  examine  further  we 
shall  find  these  houses  so  sanitary  and  so  pro- 
tected that  no  pollution  from  them  can  reach 
the  reservoir;  and  we  shall  find  the  people  of 
the  cities  summering  here  in  healthful,  restful 
surroundings,  boating,  fishing,  hunting  in  the 
forest  reserve,  enjoying  the  use  of  their  own 
state  property  to  the  fullest  extent.  One  reser- 
voir above  another  admits  our  little  steamboat 
till  we  come  to  the  headwaters.  Power  house 
after  power  house  we  pass,  and  the  wires  that 
feed  the  cities  lower  down  reach  from  them  over 
the  hills  by  short  courses  to  the  cities.  All 
through  the  forests  we  shall  find  forest  gangs 
at  work  cutting  out  mature  timber,  machinery 
erected  here  and  there  to  carry  to  the  reser- 
voir a  year's  growth,  the  waste  gathered  up 
and  burned  or  carried  to  a  boat  and  away  to 

277 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

the  alcohol  factory,  the  timber  barged  down 
to  the  sawmills,  the  paper  mills  and  the  furni- 
ture factories.  Everything  put  to  use,  every- 
thing designed  to  give  pleasure,  nothing  wasted 
—  that  is  the  net  result  of  Water  Farming  as 
we  find  it  here. 

Is  it  not  worth  while?  Is  it  not  worth  study 
and  attention  and  hard  work  at  the  polls,  to 
bring  about  this  situation?  This  situation  in 
which  every  river  becomes  a  public  asset  and 
its  development  returns  to  the  people  a  steady 
money  income?  A  situation  in  which  this 
money  income  pays  for  public  parks  and  public 
buildings,  spreads  out  the  cities  into  the  coun- 
try and  gives  us  public  health ;  turns  the  sewage 
into  healthful  fertilizer  and  gives  us  cheaper 
living;  turns  headwaters  into  paying  forests 
and  healthful  playgrounds  for  the  people,  and 
provides  a  river  channel  on  which  we  can  visit 
them ;  takes  the  smoke  from  the  air,  and  makes 
of  the  farmer's  life  a  continual  course  of  scien- 
tific and  engineering  study,  interesting  and  of 
value  to  the  nation? 

278 


RESULTS 

Is  that  not  worth  while?  Indeed  we  find  it 
so.  And  we  must  cast  about  us  for  the  manner 
of  obtaining  it. 

We  find  that  method  in  every  department  of 
government.  The  nation  is  concerned  because 
the  rivers  are  interstate.  The  states  are  con- 
cerned because  the  work  lies  within  their  bor- 
ders. The  cities  are  concerned  because  they 
need  the  power,  the  channel  and  the  security 
from  floods.  The  country  people  are  concerned 
for  the  same  reason  and  because  they  need  to 
retain  their  soil.  So  we  must  work  out  our 
plans  for  every  river,  and  having  formed  a  plan 
we  must  make  it  law.  This  means  that  we  must 
form  fellowships,  or  societies  to  undertake  the 
work,  or  we  must  force  our  states  into  agree- 
ments which  Congress  will  sanction  by  which 
it  must  be  carried  out.  These  two  plans,  or 
that  of  a  national  Department  of  Public  Works 
carrying  out  the  work  on  each  river  under  sanc- 
tion of  the  state,  on  bond  issues,  and  charging 
the  improvement  to  pay  for  the  bonds.  And 
when  it  is  done  turning  it  over  to  the  people, 

279 


THE    CONSERVATION    OF   WATER 

dividing  the  income  among  the  cities  and  the 
counties,  and  allowing  it  to  pay  for  the  develop- 
ment of  public  benefits  everywhere.  That  is 
the  sane  and  reasonable  plan.  In  the  end  it 
requires  fundamental  changes  in  our  attitude 
toward  our  government  and  its  laws.  We  must 
all  come  as  some  have  come  now  to  the  belief 
that  the  spirit  of  the  law  requires  them  to  be 
administered  for  public  rather  than  private 
gain.  The  effort  of  our  lawmakers  and  law 
enforcers  must  be  not  to  alienate  what  the 
people  own  for  private  development,  but  to  re- 
tain it  and  develop  it  under  public  control  so 
that  we  may  all  together  get  the  benefit  of  it. 
We  have  passed  the  day  when  we  need  fear  to 
take  up  national  development  as  a  nation  and 
state  development  as  a  state.  We  must  come 
to  that  problem  fairly  in  Conservation,  and  all 
the  rights  and  privileges  which  lie  in  running 
water  must  be  thrown  open  and  held  open  for 
all,  as  state  and  nation. 

The  end  even  then  will  be  slow  in  coming,  but 
it  will  be  steady.     Every  year  some  new  dam 

280 


RESULTS 

will  hold  back  some  new  reservoir  and  take 
another  foot  off  the  crest  of  a  flood.  Every 
low  water  season  will  see  deeper  water  in  the 
channel.  Every  year  will  see  less  and  less  soil 
crumbling  into  the  rivers,  more  acres  of  pro- 
tective forests  well  cared  for,  more  public  docks, 
more  public  electric  power,  more  income  revert- 
ing to  the  nation  and  the  state  to  carry  on  the 
work. 

We  will  not  see  it  done,  nor  our  children. 
But  our  grandchildren  will  come  to  it  by  birth 
and  education  and  sweep  it  on  rapidly  to  com- 
plete perfection.  And  the  trip  up  the  river 
which  I  have  described,  which  you  who  read 
this  may  never  make,  your  grandson  will  make 
while  still  a  young  man,  and  he  will  make  it 
with  that  new  pride  and  delight  in  his  own  land 
which  he  cannot  have  until  he  has  taken  care 
of  it,  saved  and  protected  it  and  made  it  a  beau- 
tiful and  a  lovely  place. 


281 


INDEX 


Adirondack  mountains,  121 
Alabama,  32,  48,  121,  148,  231, 

236 

Alleghany  mountains,  31 
Alleghany  river,  81 
Alps,  the,  223,  226 
Alton,  111.,  264 
Apache  Indians,  196,  199 
Arizona,  180,  196,  197 
Arkansas,  48,    147,    151,    153, 

157,  158 

Arkansas  river,  123 
Atchafalaya  river,  154 
Augusta,  Ga.,  in,  117 

Babylon,  181 

Bad  Lands,  the,  206 

Baton  Rouge,  152 

Bavaria,  133 

"Belle  of  Memphis,"  157 

Bellows  Falls,  Vt,  45 

Big  Sandy  river,  36,  251 

Black  river,  154 

Bohemia,  47,  48,  73 

Boston,  Mass.,  87,  88 

Bremen,  262 

Bridgeport,  111.,  84,  85 

Broward,  Gov.  Napoleon  B., 

172 

"Bubbly  Creek,"  84 
Bureau  of  Soils,  240,  241 


Cairo,  111.,  9,  10,  39,  81,  122, 

254 
California,  23,  123,   127,   148, 

170,  174,  180,  216 
Canalization,  249-253 
Carey  act,  182,  190-194,  216 
Carson  City,  Nev.,  211 
Carson  river,  211 
Cass  lake,  61 
Catskill    mountains,    81,    89, 

121 
Central  Colorado  Power  Co., 

126 

Chanoine  Wicket  dam,  251 
Charleston,  S.  C.,  166 
Chicago,  its  water  supply,  81, 

83-87,  93;  mentioned,  112, 

116,  117,  123,  150,  263 
Chicago  canal,  86,  87,  263 
Chicago,  Milwaukee  and  St. 

Paul  R.  R.,  129 
Chicago  river,  84 
Chicopee  river,  44 
Chile,  131 
Chippewa  river,  76 
Cincinnati,  37 
Clark's  Fork,  123,  207 
Cliff  Dwellers,  the,  197,  199 
Colorado,  123,  126,  210,  211 
Colorado  river,  196,  221 
Columbia  river,  63,    64,    123, 


283 


INDEX 


124,  139,  179,  183,  201,  209, 
265 

Columbus,  Ky.,  152 

Congress,  authority  over  rivers, 
17,26,27,112,113,116,150 

Connecticut,  115 

Connecticut  river,  described 
44-46;  mentioned,  106,  115, 
116 

Conservation  of  the  soil,  220- 
244 

Conservation  of  water,  its  aim, 
8;  its  elements,  13 ;  its  impor- 
tance, 27 ;  the  first  step  in,  53 ; 
its  relation  to  swamp  drain- 
age, 145,  160-172,  174-175; 
its  relation  to  irrigation,  176- 
179,  181-182,  202,  216-219; 
its  relation  to  conservation 
of  the  soil,  220-244;  its  re- 
lation to  navigation,  245- 
266;  its  results,  267-281 

Coosa  river,  107,  265 

Croton  river,  89 

Cumberland  river,  37 

Dams.    See  Canalization,  Res- 
ervoirs, Roosevelt  Dam. 
Danube  river,  248 
Darnell- Watson  feud,  154 
Death  Valley,  211 
Deerfield  river,  44 
Des  Chutes  river,  30,  124,  209 
Des  Moines  rapids,  122 
Des  Monies  river,  32 
Dismal  Swamp,  150 
Doe  river,  100,  101,  102,  231 
Dover,  N.  H.,  107 
Drainage.  See  Swamp  drainage 


Duluth,  140,  141 
Durance,  the,  4,  224 

Egypt,  181 

Electric  power.  See  Water- 
power 

Erosion  of  soil,  220-238 
Euphrates  river,  181 
Everglades,  the,  149,  172,  173 
Exhaustion  of  soil,  241 

"Fall  Line"  of  Appalachians, 

121,  137 
Fellowship  of  the  Neisse,  49- 

52,  60,  115 
Fish  propagation,  13 
Flambeau  river,  76 
Flathead  lake,  63,  64,  207 
Flathead  river,  63,  123,  207 
Flood  prevention,  14,  38-52 
Floods,  28-47 
Florida,  swamp  drainage   in, 

172-175;    mentioned,    147, 

150,  151 

Forests,  necessary  for  conser- 
vation of  water,  13,  65-78 

"Forty-mile  Desert,"  211 

Fox  river,  76 

France,  4,  23,  24,  68,  112,  223, 
224,  226 

French  Broad  river,  231 

Gallatin  range,  32 
Garonne,  the,  226,  227 
Gascogny,  226,  227 
Genossenschaft    of    Bohemia. 
See  Fellowship  of  the  Neisse 
Georgia,  121,  231,  236,  240 
Germany,  73, 118,  223 


284 


INDEX 


Gibbons  vs.  Ogden,  16 
Gila  river,  196 
Girardeau,  Cape,  152,  153 
Glacier  Park,  207 
Glenwood,  Colo.,  126 
Gore  Canon,  126 
Grand  Rapids,  Wis.,  74 
Great  Falls,  Mont.,  22 
Great  Lakes,  the,  53,  60,  245 
Great  Northern  R.  R.,  129 
Great  Plains,  the,  32 
"Green  coal,"  4 
Grenoble,  4 
Griffith,  E.  M.,  73 
Gunnison-Uncompaghre  pro- 
ject, the,  210,  211-215 

Hamburg,  Germany,  262 
Hartford,  Conn.,  45,  46 
Helena,  Ark.,  152,  153,  154 
Hetch-Hetchy  valley,  92 
Holland,  149,  167,  169,  170 
Hollybush,  Ark.,  41 
Holston  river,  232 
Holyoke,  Mass.,  45,  46,  106 
Hood  river,  180 
Hudson  river,  89,  265 
Hymelia,  La.,  41 

Idaho,  123,  124,  142,  179,  183, 

192,  216 
Illinois,  14,  82,  116,  117,  147, 

155,  189,  238,  242,  263 
Illinois  and  Michigan  canal,  84, 

85 
Illinois  river,  32,  85,  86,  139, 

253 

India,  181 
Indiana,  32 


International  Falls,  141 
Irrigation,  n,  13,  15,  19,  21, 

23,  25,  176-219 
Itasca,  Lake,  32 

James  Bayou  gang,  157 
James  river,  33 
Jersey  marshes,  150 
John  Day  falls,  124 

Kanawha  river,  36 
Kentucky,  48,  157,  228,  229- 

231,  235 

Kentucky  river,  36 
Keokuk,  Iowa,  108,  113,  122 
Klamath  lake,  174,  180,  215 
Kouchiching,  Minn.,  140 

L'Anguille  river,  154 

La  Fourche,  Bayou,  154 

Lakes-to-the-Gulf  channel,  263 

Landes,  the,  226,  227 

Law  as  applied  to  water,  14-27 

Leech  lake,  61 

Levees,  on  the  Mississippi,  10, 

39-41,    150,    158,    159-160, 

167,  257;  on  the  St.  Francis, 

163,  164,  167 
Lewiston,  Me.,  107 
Licking  river,  36 
Lignite  coal,  203,  204 
Little  Missouri  river,  33 
Little  River  district,  161 
Loire  river,  38 
Los  Angeles,  90,  91 
Louisa,  Ky.,  251 
Louisiana,  48,   144,   147,   148, 

149,  151,  154,  167-172 
Lowell,  Mass.,  106 


285 


INDEX 


Maine,  147 
Manchac,  Bayou,  154 
Manchester,  N.  H.,  107 
Massachusetts,  88,  115 
McDonald,  Lake,  207 
Memphis,  Tenn.,  150, 152, 153, 

159 

Menominee  river,  76 

Merrimac  river,  106 

Metropolitan  Water  Commis- 
sion (Mass.),  88 

Michigan,  147 

Michigan,  Lake,  83,  85 

Milk  river,  203 

Miller's  river,  44 

Milling,  21 

Mining,  21 

Minneapolis,  61,  in,  137,  141 

Minnesota,  60,  140,  147,  148, 
150,  151,  166 

Minnesota  river,  32 

Mississippi,  147 

Mississippi  river,  its  lesson,  9; 
described,  3i~33,  247;  its 
levees,  39-41,  159-160;  ba- 
sins at  head  of,  60-6  2 ;  erosion 
on,  232-235;  mentioned,  18, 
28, 37,  38,  59, 64, 86, 94, 103, 
108,  113,  117,  122, 139, 141, 
145,  149,  iSi,  152,  153,  154, 
155,  156,  157,  158,  161,  162, 
165, 166, 169,  220,  222,  257- 
258,  261,  262,  264,  265, 
266 

Missouri,  29,  48, 148,  151, 152, 
153,  157,  158,  161 

Missouri  river,  described,  32- 
34,  247;  irrigation  projects 
along,  202-206;  erosion  on, 


232;  mentioned,  22,  38,  123, 

126,  1 60,  258 
Montana,  22,    123,    126,    179, 

189,  202,  206,  216 
Morgan,  Col.  George,  155 
Mormons,  the,  182 
Municipal  water  supply,  79-96 
Muscle  Shoals,  Term.,  107, 122, 

139 

Navigation,  13,  15,  245-266 
Neisse  river,  47-52 
Nevada,  112,  180,  210 
New  England,  107,    121,    149, 

150,  174,  238 
New  Hampshire,  44,  115 
New  Madrid,  Mo.,  155,  156 
New  Mexico,  180 
New  Orleans,  18,  39,  81,  139, 

155,  167,  263 

New  York  (city),  80,  87,  89,  98 
New  York  (state),  31,121, 148, 

238,  265 

New  York  Central  R.  R.,  129 
New  York,   New  Haven  and 

Hartford  R.  R.,  129 
Newell,  Frederick  H.,  195 
Nile,  the,  181 
Nitrate  manufacture,  130-136, 

173 

Nolichucky  river,  231 
North  Carolina,  32,  147,  231 
North  Dakota,  179,  206,  232 
Norway,  112,  133 

Ohio,  32,  228 

Ohio  river,  described,  34-38, 
247;  mentioned,  30,  31,  56, 
81,  122,  139,  160,  228,  248, 


286 


INDEX 


249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 258, 


259, 260, 261 

Okechobee,  Lake,  173 

Okefenokee,  150 

"Open  channel"  development, 


247-249 
Oregon,  23,  25,  26,  113,  114, 


123,  124,  174,  180,  183,  209, 

215,  216 
Owen  river,  90. 
Ozark  Mountains,  152,  155 


Pacific  Gas  and  Electric  Co., 


126 
Palouse  wheat  country,   the, 


179 

Panama  Canal,  261,  262 
Peedee  river,  265 
Pend  d'Oreille  river,  63,  123, 

207 

Pennsylvania,  31,  34 
Peshtigo  river,  76 
Phoenix,    Arizona,    197,    200, 

201 
Pima  Indians,  200 


Pittsburg,  34,  35,  36,  81,  122, 


249 

Platte  river,  33 
Point  Pleasant,  Mo.,  233 
Pokegama  lake,  61 
Pondage,  105 
Port  Arthur,  Canada,  141 
Portland,  Ore.,  124 
Prairie  du  Rocher,  111.,  28 
Prickley  Pear  valley,  22 
Priest's  Rapids,  124 
"Prior  Right,"  19,  21,  22 
Protective  Forests,  227 
Prussia,  47,  48 


Pumping,  201-205,    2°7>    208, 

209 
Pyrenees,  the,  226 

RainfaU,  5,  31,  34,  55,  56,  124, 
189,  190 

Rainy  Lake  river,  139,  140 

Rainy  river,  27,  125 

Reclamation  act,  182,  194-195 

Reclamation  Service,  174, 195, 
202,  208,  210,  211,  213,  216 

Red  river,  154,  169 

Reelfoot,  156,  157 

Reichenberg,  49,  53 

Reno,  Nev.,  211 

Reservoirs,  the  making  of,  57- 
60;  at  head  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, 60-62;  necessary  for 
irrigation,  63-64;  their  effect 
in  Wisconsin,  77,  78;  at 
Roosevelt  Dam,  200;  at 
headwaters  of  Columbia 
river,  208-209;  in  Truckee- 
Carson  project,  211;  their 
use  for  navigation,  259 

Revetment,  234,  255 

Rhone,  the,  224,  226,  227 

Riparian  rights,  15,  19 

Rock  Island  rapids,  122 

Rocky  Mountains,  32 

Romans,  the,  80 

Rome,  Ga.,  239 

Roosevelt,  Arizona,  197,  200 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  26,  113, 
264 

Roosevelt  Dam,  196-201 


Sacaton  Indian  reservation, 
200 

287 


INDEX 


Sacramento  river,  174 

St.  Anthony's  Falls,   61,  62, 

III,   122 

St.  Francis  river,  154, 157, 161, 

162,  163 
St.  Francis  Swamp,  153,  154, 

156,  158,  163,  164,  165,  167, 

171 

St.  John,  Bayou,  157 
St.  Lawrence  river,  53,  125 
St.  Louis,  Mo.,  83,   108,   122, 

123,  139,  150,  264 
St.  Paul,  Minn.,  61,  62 
Salmon  river,  124 
Salt  river,  196, 197, 199,  218 
San  Francisco,  87,  92,  93,  124, 

126,  127,  128,  139 
San  Joaquin  river,  174 
Savannah  river,  221 
Saxony,  47,  48,  51 
Sea  Island,  153 
Seattle,  87,  124 
Seine  river,  38 

Sewage,  its  pollution  of  mu- 
nicipal  water   supply,   79- 

88 

Sewickly,  Pa.,  81 
Shawinigan  falls,  107 
Silesia,  51 

Snake  river,  124,  183 
Soil  preservation,  13 
South  Carolina,  148,  166,  231 
South  Pass,  the,  152 
Southport,  La.,  81 
Spokane,  112,  123,  128 
Spokane  river,  123 
Stevens  Point,  Wis.,  74 
Storage.   See  Water  storage 
Suck,  the,  107 


Swamp  drainage,  12,  13,  144- 

i7S 
Switzerland,  4,  23,  73,  112 

Taft,  President,  214 
Teche,  Bayou,  154 
Tennessee,  32,  48,  157 
Tennessee  river,  37,  48,  122, 

139,  231,  259,  265 
Tensas  river,  153 
Texas,  148 
Thunder  Bay,  140 
Tieton  project,  21,  215 
Tigris  river,  181 
Tobacco,  228,  229,  230 
Tomahawk  river,  76 
Truckee-Carson  project,   the, 

210 

Tule  lake,  215 
Tuolumne  river,  92 
Twin  Falls,  124 

Umatilla    project,    the,    209, 

210 

Umatilla  reservation,  179 
Uncompaghre  river,  212-215 
United  Missouri  River  Power 

Co.,  22,  126 
Utah,    water    law  in,    19-20, 

185-187;  irrigation  in,  182, 

184,    1 88;    mentioned,    30, 

180 
Utica,  111.,  263,  264 

Valley  Forge,  Term.,  100 
Vermont,  115 
Vicksburg,  152,  153 
Virginia,  121,  148 
Virginia  City,  Nev.,  211 


288 


INDEX 


Wachusett  dam,  89 
Washington  (state),  123,  179, 

183,  209,  216 

Washita  river,  123,  153,  169 
Water,  its  importance,  5-8 
Waterpower,  amount  wasted, 
10;  law  as  applied  to,  14-27; 
its  loss  by  flood,  42-46;  its 
development,  97-143;  men- 
tioned, 13,  21 

Water  rights,  185-187,  194 
Water  storage,  13,  38-78,  105 
Water  titles,  14,  21, 23, 26, 114, 

187,  216 

West  Virginia,  32 
Westfield  river,  44 
Wheeling,  W.  Va.,  81,  249 
"White  Coal,"    derivation   of 
phrase,  4 


White  river,  123,  153 

Willamette  river,  23 

Williston,  No.  Dak.,  204,  205, 
206 

Winnibigoshish  lake,  61 

Wisconsin,  preservation  of  for- 
ests in,  70-78;  mentioned,  26, 

"3,  147 

Wisconsin  river,  32,  74,  76, 
127 

Wisconsin  Valley  Improve- 
ment Co.,  74,  115 

Wolf  river,  76 

Wyoming,  179 

Yakima  valley,  21,  179,  215 
Yazoo  Delta,  the,  153 
Yellowstone  river,  203 
Yosemite  National  Park,  92, 93 


289 


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